I worked in a franchisee-owned McDonalds circa 2011 and I agree with the sentiment of this article. At the time they were trying to be all things to all people. Instead of focusing on their core strength: burgers and fries, they expanded an already crowded menu by introducing items like the McWrap and Fish McBites that nobody really wanted. Since then I think they've been trying to turn things around by trimming the fat from the menu ("getting back to basics") and actually responding to what customers want by doing things like introducing all-day breakfast.

Also, I got the sense that they don't have a great relationship with their franchisees. For example, there's a special salt shaker called AccuSalt[0] that the McDonald's Corporation requires franchisees to own which costs hundreds of dollars if I remember correctly. It's a total ripoff because the thing is a cheap plastic POS that breaks whenever it's dropped and franchisees aren't allowed to buy a generic one. As a result of this and probably 100 other little things, I once heard that the franchisee I worked for got the McDonald's Corporation to fly out an HVAC tech across the country to fix a thermostat out of spite.

[0]: https://www.sonoco.com/productsandservices/plastics/accusalt...