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New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

wired.com

131–140 of 151 posts

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positive global gradient is insufficient; positive local gradient is necessary, at all links of the value chain.

As a non-native English speaker, I dont get this. Can someone explain it for me?

(Non-native English speaker).

In an optimization problem, there can be global optimum and local optimums. He says that global optimum is not enough for supply chain, because lower layers money will be sucked by upper layers and chain will break, because owner of sucked business will park his money somewhere else, so each level must operate at a local optimum.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#132
post #19

The wired article was extremely short not sure if I’m just not getting the full article? It seems from my perspective that Taylor and McDonald’s conspired to take money from the franchise owners. What a shame. Because all it does is incentives owners to cut corners like say serve cold fries so they don’t lose money. McDonald’s used to be great but somewhere lost the way. They used to be the affordable place anyone co…

> McDonald’s used to be great When was this?

It was great when I was a kid (almost 50 years ago).

Other poster lists some tangible changes made to their menu but for me the difference is simply that I was a kid with a working-class single parent and my tastes were simpler. Hamburger + small fries + small Coke was an affordable "treat" for us.

Perhaps marketing is as responsible for killing McDonald's image: when small disappeared and it was "regular" size. Super-size dinks.... "Would you like fries with that?" Or when giant burgers (Bic Mac, Quarter-pounder, Double Quarter-pounder, Double cheeseburger) started dominating the menu and the small hamburger took a back seat.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#133
post #85

The reason why McD tastes the same everywhere in the world is because of strict protocols like this. Ever wondered why Domino’s tastes very different depending on the country? I prefer predictability in quality and that is one thing that McD gets right

Does that mean dominos tastes good somewhere?

UK Dominos is damn good and very consistent between stores too.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying is shitty (but usually legal), however "buy this device and copy it's features and user interface" is not "dirty hands" but a completely legitimate course of action. They would have hands dirty if they had bribed some Kytch engineers for schematics or hired someone to steal a prototype, but there's nothing wrong about buying a product and reverse engineering it. In fact, I would consider placing restrictions on…

Completely agree. I don't understand why copying is so vilified. It should be the norm. It's also weird how people can somehow sign away their rights via contracts. Courts shouldn't allow them to do that. A clause saying people can't reverse engineer should simply be considered invalid and not enforced...

Part of the vilification of copying has to do with some existing injustices baked into modern capitalism. We're told that if you're a little guy, you can beat the Goliaths through innovation and outmaneuvering. But if BigCo can just copy SmallCo's innovations, that becomes untrue. Do patents help here? Yes, but it's quite expensive, in practice, to amass and defend them. In many cases, smaller players don't have the resources to patent every innovation, even if those innovations are objectively patentable. So I think, in general, although people recognize that copying of unpatented innovations is legal, there's a feeling that a BigCo, which already has many advantages because of its size, should be competing based on its own innovations, not by copying from smaller players.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#135
The meta-lesson here is that if you plan to go into the business of providing service for an existing tech ecosystem, be prepared in your future for a fight like this.

Companies with small, insular lock-in arrangements don't cede territory willingly. Be it squeezing in on the dominant grocery in a small town, the used car dealers in a county, or the inkjet printer ink cartridge supply chain, find a damn good lawyer who's excited for a fight early in your company's life.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#136
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is McDonald's isn't paying for all the unnecessary service calls, it is the restaurant owner that have to buy the McDonald's mandated machines that end up paying. So you have McDonald's which has no incentive to change things, Taylor which profits from the situation since their devices are mandated and the restaurant owners who have to foot the bill for hundreds of pointless service calls.

But what does McDonald's gain from the PR backlash? Is there some perpetual contract between McDonald's and Taylor, and they just screwed up by buying a worse model? You'd think that the corporate overlords would perfer the machine to be working so they make money from the sales...

Nothing. But the alternative isn't great either.

Its more costly and vastly more negative from a PR perspective, for McDonalds to force franchisees to change ice cream machinery vendors.

Same thing for Taylor upgrading their own machines - with the added cost that they don't have any goodwill to start.

There's an added incentive here that McD wants the legal shield up at all times - they are incentivized to keep machine error rate very low, to the cost of $$ in sales lost.

Consumers greatly benefit from it - we get worse availability of ice cream when we walk in, and we are paying slightly more in menu prices, but the risk of getting poisoned from eating ice cream at McD ends up extremely low.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#137
post #35
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spite of every thing, I do not believe its a majority. As with many things, it is the loud minority. We would not have progress, if your statement were true.

Progress happens when the incumbent interest is disrupted by something they couldn't see coming, or couldn't stop because of their own inertia.

When I think about this, I think about how Apple stole the music industry for awhile.

The RIAA was tossing lawsuits left and right to try to stem the tide of piracy. Companies tried to build up digital marketplaces, but the studios and labels owned the rights and didn't want to play ball. And most of the companies shot themselves in the foot by also not playing ball; after all, the RIAA was wrong, they were dinosaurs, they didn't understand tech and their demands were anachronistic nonsense.

Along came Apple, and they basically sat down with the RIAA and did nothing but play ball. Exclusive deals? Got it. Our best cryptography folks working on a cipher algorithm to keep your music "secure" on a device someone else owns? Yes, we'll tell you we can do that and invest time and money into making it plausibly true. A revenue-sharing agreement so lopsided it would make a used car salesman blush? Here's our vein; open us up and leave us with as much as you think we need.

And that lasted for a couple years. Then Apple unilaterally announced they were dropping the encryption. It was, after all, a pain in the ass for end-users.

And the RIAA screamed.

And Apple just stared them down and said "You killed all the alternatives. Where else but iTunes will you go? You can't even go back to CDs; customers liked digital so much they stopped buying them and the machines that play them."

And for a brief period, Apple became de-facto owners of music distribution overnight by simply giving the previous owners everything they thought they wanted.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have a lower MTBF than other Taylor machines sold to other fast food chains. McDonalds requires franchises to purchase specific models that are more prone to failure and harder to repair.

Why would they do that?

McDonalds and Taylor have a very close relationship.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#139
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is McDonald's isn't paying for all the unnecessary service calls, it is the restaurant owner that have to buy the McDonald's mandated machines that end up paying. So you have McDonald's which has no incentive to change things, Taylor which profits from the situation since their devices are mandated and the restaurant owners who have to foot the bill for hundreds of pointless service calls.

But what does McDonald's gain from the PR backlash? Is there some perpetual contract between McDonald's and Taylor, and they just screwed up by buying a worse model? You'd think that the corporate overlords would perfer the machine to be working so they make money from the sales...

> You'd think that the corporate overlords would prefer the machine to be working so they make money from the sales...

And that's where the intrigue and accusations of foul play are coming in. It seems like McD's has mandated this model of Machine and Taylor agreed to make it worse (they supply better machines without these issues to other fast food chains). Taylor profits from the service calls and I'd bet some McD's exec are getting kickbacks to keep it that way (by mandating a worse machine that makes franchise owners less money). The Kytch device came along and upset that status quo.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#140
post #55
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the fries. In and Out fries are not very good (ironic since they make a point of making them fresh, which would make one think they should be better). Otherwise, better quality, prices, and service (and staff pay and treatment).

Have you tried ordering them well done? Its on the "secret menu" - http://hackthemenu.com/in-n-out/secret-menu/well-done-fries/

Good to know. I've now moved away from their territory but I'll try that the next time I do dine there.
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