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> What people are forgetting here is McDonald's has an interest in these machines working as well as possible (revenue + reputation)

But clearly they are dropping the ball all the way to the third basement. If a piece of equipment is so bad that it's lack of reliability becomes a meme then you have issues.

What I really don't understand is that it seems that the franchisees are paying for the equipment manufacturer per service call. It would make much more sense to pay a fixed fee per ice cream machine per unit of time subject to some SLA. If you properly set up the incentive structure that makes the equipment manufacturer incentivised to seek ways to provide reliable, easy to maintain machines.

It is not like this is impossible. The same manufacturer sells reliable machines to all the other chains! So they can do it.

> The only people who seem to really care about this issue are customers.

And the franchisees? Who are losing money every time they are turning away costumers. (Not talking about the lost business because they are not seen as a reliable purveyor of ice cream, and people who crave ice cream go to some other place.) And losing money every time they call service for a piece of trash equipment.

> But clearly they are dropping the ball all the way to the third basement. If a piece of equipment is so bad that it's lack of reliability becomes a meme then you have issues.

I couldn't find numbers - however I have a feeling the issue isn't less reliability than expected, but rather McDonald's serves more ice cream products (by volume) than most or all other fast food chains.

Anecdotally, people travel to McDonald's only for some of their ice cream products, such as McFlurries, and then leave disappointed when the machine is not working. Very few people go to, say, Burger King just for a shake. This pattern makes the issue more visible.

> The same manufacturer sells reliable machines to all the other chains!

We have no real evidence of this though, do we?

It makes zero sense to have these conspiracy theories that McDonald's is being paid to push unreliable machines on franchisees or something. Few if any franchisees are even complaining about this issue, it's customers like you and me who are mad about not getting a milkshake, and then companies trying to shoehorn their way into the lucrative commercial repair business.

If McDonald's thinks everything is ok, and franchisees on average are not complaining, then what's the real issue?

No matter how we spin it, this particular situation has nothing to do with Right to Repair. It's about corporate standards for franchisees.

The franchisee’s do not like the situation. You immediately write everyone off as being conspiracy theorists, but you are failing to consider the incentives. Other companies negotiated a fixed service fee for the life of the unit paid at the time of purchase. McDonalds signed a contract that requires payment per service call. The company now has an incentive to make sure McDonalds has the least reliable machines and the franchisees have an incentive to not call in for a repair. No conspiracy needed.

Yes, lets embrace the bureaucratics, because thats how we get stuff done! /s

Both you and parent are correct. Clearly its a case of incentives, while McD has the right to manage brand exposure.

Here's my contribution. Someone downthread said other chains use Taylor with a fixed-fee service contract, which directly incentivizes Taylor to deploy quality machines.

Here's the rub: is that the complete picture?

In other words, is it possible the Taylor repair service labor fees for McD customers (and recurrence) are justified because the machines themselves are a heavy loss leader for Taylor ? And what is the cost for non-McD vendors to acquire a similar-purpose machine, with fixed fee servicing ?

That will help resolve if this issue at the core is justified, vs legal (or business) stupidity by McD corporate / malfeasance by Taylor.

> What people are forgetting here is McDonald's has an interest in these machines working as well as possible (revenue + reputation), and the franchisee also has an interest in these machines working as well as possible (revenue).

The franchisee, however, has a countervailing desire to reduce their own costs which McDonald's is fairly insensitive to. McDonald's needs the ice cream to be available, sure, but are they above accepting kickbacks from Taylor the ice cream machine company to keep Taylor's cash flow going?

We are living in an obscenely corrupt and top heavy business environment where much money is to made by insider dealing in large companies with entrenched market positions. There really should be no better evidence of that than the fact than the evidence presented here: America's largest, most famous fast food chain, incapable of reliably serving ice cream to its customers because it's subject to vendor lock-in.

McDonalds exerts controls to protect its reputation, and does this through its franchise agreements with franchisees. This makes a lot of sense for both parties and customers. I remember when Jack In The box had outbreaks of E.coli in their burgers. McDonalds had new testing methodologies and equipment at franchises (and company owned stores) in a heartbeat.

The last thing McDonalds wants are customers getting sick from listeria and having blood on their hands[1].

1. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/us/tacoma-milkshake-listeria-...

Ah shit, people here just died in the area from a uncleaned milkshake mixer. Due to listeria.

Anyone who's worked in a restaurant with a soft-serve machine (used to make milkshakes and more) knows how much of a PITA they are to clean...

Which means they don't get deep cleaned often enough, even at reputable places.

Do people get sick and die every day from these machines? No, of course not. But we cannot trivialize the liability and risk here.

If every restaurant had a self-cleaning smart self-diagnosing machine like McDonald's has, all the better.

You should think carefully before ordering a soft-serve anything from most places...

At a small town in my Canadian province there is a seasonal ice cream stand/dairy bar. My Mom and Aunt go there since it's the town in which they grew up.

My Mom asked the person at the counter why does their soft ice cream taste so good. The person said "Because we clean the machine every day."

Right now their reputation is that their machines don't work. Worrying about the health of their customers is pointless if they don't have any customers.

McDonald's is hardly hurting for customers...

It's literally a meme that their ice cream machines are broken. The expectation has become part of our shared culture.

> What happens if the replacement parts aren't actually as good, safe or reliable as the originals?

I don't see how that line of thinking is any different to the argument manufacturers are making regarding right to repair. The response is simple, all parts must be G.A. and manufacturers can't force the company they are sourcing their parts from to not sell to third parties.

McDonalds can very well sue the franchise for not following the guidelines and ordering bad parts.

Even if Taylor allowed anyone to repair their machines - McDonald's is unlikely to allow franchisees that privilege anyway, for all of the reasons listed above.

McDonald's is also large enough of a customer that we can assume the specifics of this machine were tailored or custom-made in part just for McDonald's. The automated cleaning and self-diagnosis system is exactly what someone like corporate McDonald's wants - take those liabilities out of the hands of individual franchisees and fallible employees. Make is as dead simple as it can be... machine says no-go, then it's a no-go.

McDonald's will not allow a system where a franchisee or random-employee decides the machine is "clean enough" and proceeds to use it anyway, potentially getting people sick.

So what will be accomplished here in this specific situation? Probably nothing...

All of this sounds great until you realize that McDonald's ice cream machine reliability is by far the worst in the nation. There is no other chain that comes close. The meme is a meme for a reason. Somehow, these other chains manage to solve these issues without causing massive reliability problems. I wish I could find the videos now, but there was a decently convincing (although with the usual "documentary grain of salt" caveats) argument that McDonalds took a payout to allow Taylor to predatorily extract value while providing shit service to their Franchisees. McDonalds, the brand, is already suffering reputational damage from their craptastic ice cream but they apparently don't care.

This makes the arguments about repuatational risk from shoddy repair parts fall flat.

Perhaps, flipping it on it's head, the issue is so visible because McDonald's ice cream is by far the most popular fast food ice cream?

From Cones to McFlurries to Milkshakes, I'm pretty sure they all use the same machine. McDonald's sells a tremendous amount of ice cream products.

> I wish I could find the videos now, but there was a decently convincing (although with the usual "documentary grain of salt" caveats) argument that McDonalds took a payout to allow Taylor to predatorily extract value while providing shit service to their Franchisees.

I find that very hard to believe. You're right, it's a meme for a reason after all, but sabotaging themselves makes no sense even if Taylor paid McDonald's for that racket. McDonald's has nothing to gain in that situation, only loss of reputation and revenue.

> This makes the arguments about repuatational risk from shoddy repair parts fall flat.

It doesn't though, and cannot just be hand-waved away. Imagine what the memes would be like if the machines were further degraded by bad parts or worse, got people sick at random locations.

McDonald's has a right to force consistency. It's their brand, and ultimately their wallet that bears the consequences.

They literally don't use the same machine. The McDonalds franchise contract requires them to use a specific, made-for-mcdonalds, model (mostly similar to the models sold to other chains, but not identical). And I'm pretty sure that people have done (informal) reliability studies by things like calling random franchises, and Mcdonalds isn't just more popular, it's actually less reliable.

You misunderstood. The ice cream products from McDonald's all come from the same machine. I was not asserting they are the same machines at other fast food brands.

The fact that these machines are likely custom made, or partially customized just for McDonald's is even more reason why it's reasonable for McDonald's to force franchisees to use specific vendors for repair/parts.

Even with right to repair, McDonald's can force franchisees to use specific equipment and parts and vendors. That is their right as the brand owner.

Which means... there is no reality where joe-random repair company is going to be allowed to repair joe-random franchisee's machines using parts sourced from who knows where. It's just not going to ever happen, there's too much liability.

McDonald's wants a machine that's so brain-dead simple to use safely and keep sanitarily that even a new-hire with 5 minutes of training can operate it effectively. They get that by forcing standardization on one unit and one vendor, and software safety mechanisms that provide a firm no-go when something isn't right.

> And I'm pretty sure that people have done (informal) reliability studies by things like calling random franchises, and Mcdonalds isn't just more popular, it's actually less reliable.

You'll need some sort of source for this. Most fast food chains only sell one ice cream product, usually shakes or cones, maybe both. McDonald's sells McFlurries which are very popular, in addition to seasonal products and then the regular products. Given McDonald's is also the largest fast food chain in the world, it stands to reason they sell more ice cream products than anyone else.

Which would, yes, mean the surface area is larger and more exposed. People go there specifically for a McFlurry and come away dissapointed. How many people go to Taco Bell specifically for a milkshake and nothing else?

Of course McDonalds the brand can do that. They literally _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd party troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of problems without needing to call a Taylor tech, and McDonalds corporate disallowed it.

The point is not "can they do this" the point is "is it necessary for them to do it for brand reputational reasons".

The steelman argument I've seen for this state of affairs is that (apparently) the McDonald's machine is much more complicated to allow it to self sanitize/clean every night and only need full disassembly every 2 weeks. The machines used at other chains apparently don't' have this automatic process and must be disassembled and manually cleaned more frequently. That would all be well and good...if it worked. The frequent state of disrepair of McDonalds machines pretty clearly indicates it does not.

They are mandating the use of a low-reliability machine, presumably in the name of lower labor costs (which you'd think you wouldn't have to _mandate_ since the franchiesees probably care more about labor costs than anyone), also mandating an expensive service contract for those machines. I'm just really really skeptical that 3rd party parts would make this situation worse. People already have the impression that McDonals ice creams machines are usually broken. I don't think this opinion is based on a quantitative assesment of uptime, where, if it got 10% worse, their opinion would decrease by 10%.

To try and summarise: I thin your argument that 3rd party parts would create enough of a reliability problem to meaningfully change their reputation, which is _already_ one of lack of reliability (deserved or not), is completely implausable to me.

We're talking past each other it seems.

> They literally _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd party troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of problems without needing to call a Taylor tech, and McDonalds corporate disallowed it.

And so what? It's non-standard and non-approved. McDonald's has no idea what that firmware/tool actually does. You (and the makers) claim it was better, but how do you actually know? Maybe it just bypasses safety and sanitary standards McDonald's has set for these machines... giving the appearance in the short-term of being more reliable.

In the end, it's McDonald's who will be sued if someone gets sick from a milkshake. Therefore, they can and will enforce standards, including machines and vendors. Heck, they probably have approved vendors and parts for everything inside a McDonald's, not just the ice cream machines. The toilet paper dispenser even most likely... but surely the stoves, fryers, etc.

Right to Repair has nothing to do with this specific situation. It's about corporate standards set for franchisees.

Additionally, the franchisees aren't even complaining about this. It's customers, like you and me, who are mad we can't get a McFlurry or something.

That's not going to compel any change other than make McDonald's realize they might need more machines per location.

> McDonald's wants a machine that's so brain-dead simple to use safely and keep sanitarily that even a new-hire with 5 minutes of training can operate it effectively. They get that by forcing standardization on one unit and one vendor, and software safety mechanisms that provide a firm no-go when something isn't right.

That doesn't really jibe with the article:

"The machine overheats if it’s used too much within a certain time period. This results in mushy goop coming out or the machine shutting down and refusing to work until it resets and cools down," Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown tech, said in iFixit’s teardown.

Gonna go out on limb and rankly speculate that for health critical systems it's not advisable to assume that OUTPUT_GOOP || FAILSAFE is functionally equivalent to FAILSAFE.

> What happens if the replacement parts aren't actually as good, safe or reliable as the originals? McDonald's gets bad PR, or a lawsuit depending on the severity.

Mcdonalds will chose a provider with good enough parts or have a broken down machine... like it has now.

Volkswagen doesn't make oil, doesn't make it's own brake discs and doesn't make it's own wipers.... so what? You can buy TRW or ATE or Brembo or whatever brakes, castrol, shell, elf or whatever oil and valeo or bosch or whatever wipers. And a car is a lot more dangerous than an ice cream machine.

> Mcdonalds will chose a provider with good enough parts or have a broken down machine... like it has now.

So, what's the issue?

This entire thing is not about Right to Repair. It's about corporate McDonald's contractually enforcing standards on their franchisees. Which is reasonable.

> For those reasons alone, it's not unreasonable to force franchisees to use a specific brand of machines, contract a specific company for repairs, and use specific OEM parts. CYA big time in so many ways.

Oh, come on. It's an ice cream machine, not an aircraft. And it's not the end of the world if someone becomes sick because of a shoddy repair. It will inevitably happen in any kitchen. Restaurants, including fast food joints, cause tens of thousands of food poisoning incidents every single day.

Have we already forgotten the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit? If someone’s kid died from listeria after eating McDonald’s ice cream the lawsuit would make national news. It would destroy their reputation and cost a ton of money in damages!

  Restaurants, including fast food joints, cause tens of thousands of food
  poisoning incidents every single day.

Citation needed.

The first google result says that 48 million Americans get food poisoning a year [0]. On average that's around 131k people per day, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that at least a few thousand of those are caused by restaurants.

I'm not sure why you think this fact requires a citation.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/food-poisoning.html

I'd say it's safe to assume if you don't want to come up with a citation for two reasons:

48 million people annually is at the high end, and a multiagency report puts that number at 9 million known cases.

> Each year in the United States, an estimated 9 million people get sick, 56,000 are hospitalized, and 1,300 die of foodborne disease caused by known pathogens.

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/ifsac/pdf/P19-2020-report-Tri...

The other, is, of course, that restaurants make up a minority of meals in the US. While over half eat at restaurants regularly, that 56% is around 2–3 times a week.

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/survey-shows-how-ofte...

I’ve long suspected part of the issue is the franchises not following properly cleaning and maintenance guidelines with them, leading to higher failure rates. I know McDonalds sells more ice cream than basically any other fast food place, including actual ice cream joints, so the same issue for them will likely cause more downstream failures than it might for others just because they’re working the machines harder.

Anecdotally I know in the McDonalds near my old apartment the people would say the ice cream machine was broken in part because they just didn’t want to have to clean it. So they really would prefer if people not order ice cream.