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Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else thinks this is actually a great incidental marketing campaign for McDonald's? Not only the free reach but also tons of people discussing the "problems" with a big co and how to "fix" them as they are an essential part of society, and this case ice-creams.

Sure we focus on the big brain things like copyright, business malpractice and MBA lore but with it comes McDonald's embedded.

I know this might sound a bit snobby, but just don't play the game, ignore them. If there is criminal activity let who gets paid deal with it, otherwise just move on and stop "fixing" problems that are not of your concern, let alone "fixing" them for free.

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> stop "fixing" problems that are not of your concern, let alone "fixing" them for free.

In this case iFixit's business is selling tools and materials to fix things. So, there is an incentive for them to invest in solving the problem.

> MBA lore

What exactly do you mean by this?

> Not only the free reach but also tons of people discussing the "problems" with a big co and how to "fix" them as they are an essential part of society, and this case ice-creams.

It is an example of a general problem. I very much doubt the number of people discussing this are a significant proportion of McDonald's market.

The actual ruling was an exemption for "commercial food preparation equipment", so it applies to all machines in all restaurants in the US.

> If there is criminal activity let who gets paid deal with it, otherwise just move on and stop "fixing" problems that are not of your concern,

This is not about criminal activity, it is about not making criminals out of people who fix their own property.

Fixing the public interest is everyone's concern. This ruling would not have happened if people hd not campaigned for it.

Either the McDonalds by me is fairly lucky or this is far less common than the meme makes it out to be.

It doesn't seem like good marketing - I hadn't had it in years but wanted to try a promo mcflurry a couple years ago, and wasn't expecting it to work, which make me wonder if I shouldn't even bother going. That's the opposite of what they'd want.

But then I went, and have gone probably a couple dozen times since then in two or three years, and it's never been out of order. Obviously I'm not going every day, but across that many visits I'd be likely to catch one if the rate of failure was THAT high.

> lucky

Perhaps the “good” McDonaldses (in terms of whether they have broken machines all the time or not) are that way because they faithfully and promptly throw the requested amount of money at the Taylor licensed service providers to fix it every single time it throws its error code of doom. So we wouldn’t know how common the avoidable issues are without seeing, not just the downtime stats, but the authorized service records.

https://mcbroken.com/ scrapes online ordering and confirms not just a meme, 1/10 locations broken atm, 1/3 in some markets.

even funnier, it looks like it's owned by wendys now, so when you zoom in it highlights wendys locations nearby

The machines go into maintenance if not cleaned in time. Smart franchises clean the machine in the morning or after closing each day so it “never runs out”.

Just like smart airlines always reboot the plane regularly instead of learning the 787 has to be rebooted every 56 day.

Is this real or a joke that’s over my head? Why does a 787 need to be rebooted every 56 days?

Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading data' is shown (2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41939318

This article from The Register in 2020 has some details, and not just Boeing:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_cycl...

> Smart franchises clean the machine in the morning or after closing each day so it “never runs out”.

And when they arrive in the morning to a failed cleaning run and an opaque error code they get to pick between first calling an expensive technician to spend just a few minutes with a tool only they have to read a more detailed error and change settings. Or they can cross their fingers and hope it's not a persistent issue. Either way it's another four hour checking cycle before it's ready.

McDonalds provides the largest network of public toilets in the world. It is no small thing.

This is the biggest international travel trip I can give - download offline maps (Here, or google maps or Apple Maps all have offline maps now) and when in doubt locate a McDonald’s. WiFi and bathrooms, and sometimes even beer. ;)

Not if they don't now fix their machines, no. Then it's just "despite now being legal, McDonalds still refuses to fix their machine". Because remember: McDonalds is make of so much money that they could have trivially forced this though literal decades ago if they'd actually cared. Which they didn't. They could have even flat out bought the company that makes their machines. They didn't.

I thought it was intentional because the people that control McDonalds corporate also have shares in the ice cream machine vendor and use it as an additional vector to squeeze franchisees for their own enrichment?

>because the people that control McDonalds corporate also have shares in the ice cream machine vendor and use it as an additional vector to squeeze franchisees for their own enrichment?

Source?

I'm mostly just being playful with a fun conspiracy theory. But, McDonald's and Middleby (current parent company of Taylor), are both publicly traded. Previous parent companies of Taylor were also publicly traded.

It's not inconceivable - it wouldn't make sense to intentionally use a low quality product or intentionally cause service calls because of the decrease in revenue for McDonalds. But it would make sense to mandate a particular vendor you have a stake in.

> decrease in revenue for McDonalds.

It’s not a major problem for McDonald’s Inc. though! They don’t sell McFlurries! They lease buildings and land, and they do collect a 4% royalty on sales. But the franchisee loses the other 96% of the revenue and has to pay 100% of the “authorized Taylor repair” bill. So it’s a much bigger problem for them, and a moral hazard for McDonald’s to be able to force the store owners to use the overpriced and supposedly unnecessary (other than due to digital locks) Taylor service offerings.

If they want to squeeze more money from franchisees why not jack up the rent or royalties? The Taylor conspiracy is far less efficient at getting revenue (at the very least, you need to pay the technician), and doesn't even seem to be working very well, as evidenced by the number of stores not bothering to repair their machines.

The top of the line cut is probably hard to move without causing a big ruckus. Fluffing individual line items is probably a lot easier.

> If they want to squeeze more money from franchisees

It's probably safe to say that any public company very much does want to ;)

> why not jack up the rent or royalties?

I assume that they will always do that (as much as contracts allow, and as much as the market will bear) regardless, so any upside from this scam is just incremental revenue on top of that.

Although I admit it's been so long since I read the original stories about this that I forgot what's in it for McDonalds Inc. Clearly Taylor's parent company makes out like a bandit (I'm assuming they pay the techs poorly and thus have a high margin) but IDK how much visibility we have publicly to what the financial arrangements are now, vs. what it might be if McDonalds Inc ripped up the Taylor contract tomorrow and say, signed a new one with a company that wasn't evil. Because I agree that I don't know how those dots are connected.

This article from The Register in 2020 has some details, and not just Boeing:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_cycl...

McDonald's Corporate dictates every piece of equipment in the kitchen, from the spatulas to the fryers to the grills to the soft-serve machines. The franchisees have very little choice in any of it. It all must be from the approved list of vendors and models.

I totally agree.

Who cares if the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? It's shit ice cream. Most of you probably live near a better local ice cream/soft serve/custard joint. Heck, most of you probably live near a better corporate chain ice cream joint that probably also serves better food than McDonald's: Dairy Queen, In-N-Out, Shake Shack, Culver's, etc.

If McDonald's didn't have breakfast or coffee the whole chain might be out of business or at tiny fraction of its current size by now.

The McDonald's ice cream machine monopoly only negatively affects millionaire McDonald's franchise owners who deserve to be abused by the franchise for being so un-innovative that they resort to purchasing/renting access to a successful business model. Talk about the most opposite-of-meritocracy business venture imaginable!

Imagine if you had a half a million dollars in freely available non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own business model to try. What does that say about you as an entrepreneur/trust fund kid?

Of course, ice cream is damn easy to make at home, can be made in large batches and kept frozen forever, and it'll come out far better than any fast food ice cream I know of.

It's pretty good soft serve ice cream, which is a style many people like. It isn't really any worse than other chain soft serve ice cream like Dairy Queen's. It's not the same sort of thing as scooped hard ice cream, and it isn't something you can really make at home, whatever the merits of home made ice cream are.

We've made homemade ice cream dozens of times over 50 years... and the way I think about the delicious result is that it's like... soft serve ice cream. I think I prefer the texture of "scooped hard ice scream" but homemade with just cream, eggs, sugar, and whatever for the flavorings is just an outstanding tasty thing to eat.

I've never tasted industrial soft serve, maybe something else is going on?

Thinking back we always made it with a hand cranked machine[1], cooled by lots of salt on bagged ice cubes, maybe the current generation of electric home machines makes a different texture.

[1] A strong argument for keeping kids around.

The home ice cream market is perhaps far more developed than you realize.

You can make a harder scooped ice cream style with compressor-equipped machines from brands like Whynter.

You can make soft serve, milkshakes, concretes, and gelato with the Ninja CREAMi. I've heard it even does a decent job of making a knockoff of what you get out of a Pacojet [1] at Michelin-starred restaurants.

And of course there are a number of insulated bowl-style ice cream makers like the KitchenAid ice cream maker, which is the one I use and enjoy. I don't find that I would describe the end product as soft serve-like.

[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-scoop-on-paco-jets

I think I spent a dollar, maybe two, at the flea market, on our second hand mechanical ice cream maker. The social benefits of having the various kids, always including the guests', working it, trading off until the beautiful result happened, makes me intensely glad we weren't being judged by having some of these oh so awesome technological miracles expected.

Yeah, I don't envy your knowledge or experience.

I’m not understanding the negativity you’re projecting.

I personally think it’s wonderful that so many kitchen technologies are more accessible to home cooks. A machine like a Ninja CREAMi is opening up accessibility to ice cream varieties that were previously difficult or impossible to make at home.

I’m also not really understanding how improved appliances equals a lack of social family opportunity. You can still make cooking a group activity and I still do that with my family.

I’m not saying everyone needs some kind of expensive appliance. My ice cream maker is a KitchenAid ice cream bowl attachment which costs $60 brand new, and you could certainly find one used for much less. Products like that have all the modesty you’re desiring, it’s basically just an insulated bowl that attaches to an appliance that hasn’t changed in almost a century.

The top recommended ice cream maker on WireCutter is similar, it’s a $70 insulated bowl with a motor on it.

What I am saying is that the home ice cream market has become a gourmet hobby, so much so that commercial ice cream brands are really competing with home cooks who are saying “I can make better ice cream than this junk from the store.”

The Ninja CREAMi makes soft serve at home.

> if you had a half a million dollars in freely available non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own business model to try

the problem isn't a lack of thinking-up something new. It's a matter of risk management. Any new business idea has a significant risk of ruin. Compared to owning a chain restaurant, especially mcd's.

And I fully realize that...but someone with a half a million dollars has the capital to start at least 5 small businesses.

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