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Comment by hamburgerwah | Hacker News Reader

As Johnny Harris so eloquently points out in his "The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken" video, other big brands like Wendy's use Taylor brand machines without problem or controversy. It's only the McDonalds machines that break because they are, in fact, designed to break, to help McDonalds corporate milk their franchisees. Pun intended.

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One point: the machines aren't "broken" per se; typically the maintenance cycle does not complete and the machine only shows a very cryptic error message. The franchisee then needs to call out a Taylor service rep, wait for them and pay an expensive call-out charge. THe underlying issue is typically easily resolved; something like the hopper was too full of product so the heating cycle didn't get to the required temp; remove some and run it again".

So the reason they're always broken is they're not broken but the restauranteur has no way of knowing or resolving the issue.

I would consider "broken" and "SOP doesn't produce expected result" to be synonymous in most cases including this one.

Intentionally crippled versus broken seems like a fair distinction

> intentionally broken versus broken

Ftfy.

It's definitely a fair or rather relevant distinction for the investigation, but for the end user, it's pretty much the same, especially if you're limited to using only that one specific machine.

It was a reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware

As an end user, I can tell when I'm using it, and it annoys me. Even when I don't have large revenue streams depending on it.

> something like the hopper was too full of product

Shouldn't then there be a guide or actual limiter for maximum hopper fill level based on ambient temperature, or just a TSB, rather than perpetual service calls?

Taylor makes money from these service calls and the franchise owners have to use the machines mandated by McDonalds. There is absolutely no motivation for Taylor to kill this cash cow.

Milking that hopper for all it's worth.

So to speak.

Does the franchisee know why the machine is not working or can he/she do some basic trouble shooting to fix the issue, if not then it is broken.

No, they don't know why it's broken.

The cleaning cycle doesn't complete during the night, usually because the hopper is too full, and when they come in the next day they just run the 4 hour cleaning cycle multiple times until the cryptic error goes away.

As the video showed, when someone invented an add-on for the machines to display human readable error messages, they got attacked with a lawsuit.

>In a recent legal victory, a judge awarded a temporary restraining order against Taylor after Kytch had alleged in a complaint that the McFlurry machine manufacturer had gotten its hands on a Kytch Solution Devices with the express intention of learning its trade secrets. The complaint also alleged that Taylor had told McDonald’s and its franchisees to stop using Kytch machines on the grounds that they were dangerous, and that the company had begun development on its own version of the Kytch system at the same time.

I think you have it backwards. However, you're still right in essence, since Taylor seems to be attempting to break compatibility with the Kytch machines. Sounds a lot like another company we talk about here...

> a judge awarded a temporary restraining order against Taylor after Kytch had alleged in a complaint that the McFlurry machine manufacturer had gotten its hands on a Kytch Solution Devices with the express intention of learning its trade secrets.

This seems like a strong argument that the concept of trade secrets should be done away with.

And in turn, the Kytch device is an attempt to crack the trade secrets of the Taylor machines requiring service calls. I have a hard time rooting for either side on this one.

Wait do I get this right:

Company A builds a machine that breaks constantly and requires a lot of service — most of which people could do on site, but they can't because the error messages are not communicating anything.

Company B developed a device to read and display those error messages so the owners (?) of the machine can decide whether they fix it themselves or call support.

If I got this right I'd definitly be rooting for company B, because it offers a service that helps, while Company A apparently is afraid of not being able to compete if they just sell a working product instead of milking their customer via resource- and time-wasting service calls.

Which one of the two is that famous "innovation" capitalism is said to be good at producing?

You should add that Company A acquired the device from Company B so they could figure out how to make it not work (we all know that's their objective).

Yeah, that's absolutely fair. I was referring specifically to the keeping of trade secrets on both sides here. I really do respect Kytch for breaking into these machines, but I don't like the way they have to fight to keep it to themselves. (Then again, it's really sh---y that Taylor is trying to maintain power by making their own Kytch-like device, or to block it from working at all. So I guess I'm convinced they're the bad guys here.)

I think you have it backwards. Kytch is the company providing a diagnostic tool to fix the machines. The trade secrets were protected by NDA between kytch and someone at McDonald’s. The lawsuit is against someone who broke NDA and leaked information about the diagnostic device to Taylor. The allegation is that the manufacturer wants to prevent the diagnostic device from working.

No, and the company is trying to kill a third-party vendor of a hardware dongle that tells you what is wrong, without needing expensive on-site human support calls.

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28117164

What's McDonald's corporate's cut of the call out charge, the alleged motivation here?

Perhaps they signed a deal with Taylor to boost some KPI?

I'm not really satisfied with this explanation - it feels like a version of the broken window fallacy.

Thinking about McDonalds in aggregate, broken machines mean less revenue and more expense (to pay for Taylor call-outs). On a net basis a double loss to the organization as a whole.

Even if these losses fall more on the franchise holders than the company itself (although the company also suffers from the loss in revenue) - creating an incentive for the company, it'd doesn't make much sense to me. This would amount to a scheme to effectively increase franchise fees. Given the huge inefficiency involved as well as the cost of the reputation damage, it doesn't make sense to me when there are far more efficient mechanisms available to the company which would achieve the same thing.

Broken window is the idea that the economy as a whole is better off because of a broken window. That's fallacious. Some people benefited because they were paid to replace the window, but the economy as a whole is poorer. The original owner is out the cost of a window.

This isn't that fallacy. They aren't saying that there is an overall benefit to the window being broken. They are saying that McDonalds benefits at the expense of franchise owners.

That video was good, and it's been a few months since I've seen it, but I remember being a bit unsatisfied about the point you mentioned. It seemed implied to me that Wendy's and other places use the same kind of Taylor machines and it was never really explained why they don't break. I understand the idea that McDonalds requires using the Taylor machine which creates some of an incentive against fixing it, but it wasn't clear to me if the other companies don't require their use as well (which would create the same incentive), and even if they don't it doesn't really explain what's different about those machines since clearly they are functioning a lot better.

McDonalds uses a different model than the other fast food places.

Sure, but then why doesn't Taylor just do the same thing with the other models?

Perhaps the other companies don’t mandate usage of a single machine?

I don't know, that's what I'm asking. The video doesn't make it clear what's going on with those, and Google doesn't really tell me anything either.

My understanding from one of the articles was that McDonalds wanted them to make a special model that did away with some portion of the manual process in favor of press-button maintenance, and they did.

Unfortunately, it turns out that it's hard to replicate the reliability and adaptability of human manual labor mechanically sometimes.

The point is that McD-corp gets IceC-corp big money by mandating a single machine from them. IceM(achine)-corp do this through broken maintenance process. Hence IceM-corp see machines very often and ensures as a third party that food-safety of ice-cream produced by these machines is satisfied. This is what McD-corp is getting back from it. They don't trust die Franchises and let them pay money for their own inspection.

Some people have suggested that somebody at McDonald's, involved in mandating the use of this particular model, may have benefited from the outcome.

The video in question, if you haven’t seen it: https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4

For those who rather listen. The podcast 'The Sporkful' has an episode called 'Hacking McDonald's Broken Ice Cream Machines'

(And I just noticed when looking up the link, they also have video)

https://www.sporkful.com/hacking-mcdonalds-broken-ice-cream-...

And if you both don't want to watch video, nor listen to the podcast episode, the page has a full transcript of the episode.

I found it to be a pretty interesting story.

All those franchises are just making a flurry outta nothin

(McFlurry)

I'm not convinced. McDonalds isn't in the business of disappointing their customers.

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