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Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

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Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#131

Post by ansible »

kmeisthax wrote: post #107
paulmd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's exerts extremely extremely tight control over its franchisees by corporate standards. Every single thing about a McDonald's is meticulously specified and regulated by corporate, from the equipment installations to the number of pickle slices that go on a burger and the soap that goes into the bathroom. Franchisees in general don't wear the pants in this relationship. If McD corporate says you use this mach…

I have to wonder if Taylor agreed to custom-build McDonalds an ice cream machine specifically because they figured they had implied license to hose franchisees on service costs. Or, in other words, if McDonalds had said "make the machine reliable enough to serve ice cream 100% of the time with no service calls", then Taylor would have charged 10x or something. The fact that McDonalds is libeling Kytch sounds like Tay…

From what I understand, Subway is also very strict with the franchisees. At least as far as food suppliers go.

It is all in the name of "quality" or more truthfully "consistency".

Even so, unless you're a relatively small regional chain, you'd think that having at least two different equipment suppliers would help corporate drive down costs for the franchisees, and thereby make more profit for themselves.

That's what is so strange about this entire situation. McD corporate historically has been laser-focused on profit, which they get through scale (volume) and efficiency. I don't see how there aren't some people in corporate getting fired for this. If the ice cream machines work, they franchisees sell more product. This generates more revenue (and profit) selling the restaurants more ice cream mixture, as well as increasing profits for the restaurants themselves. Which also generates more profits for corporate too. Because of course corporate double-dips.

Money being left on the table... that doesn't sound like McDonalds.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#132

Post by joezydeco »

registeredcorn wrote: post #125
sandworm101 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It means that they just open up and clean the machine each day, just like every other appliance that touches food. The MD machine was designed to run without daily cleaning.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite following: Employees do clean these machines every day, but because of how it's designed they don't need to do so? Is this something kind of like: I can change my motor oil every 500 miles my car is driven, but according to the manufacturer I don't need to do so that often?

Old machines: The oil is good for 500 miles. It needs to be flushed and replaced every 500 miles.

New machines: There's an active oil filter in the car that needs to be turned on every 500 miles. The oil and filter need to be replaced every 5000.

The filtering can be done overnight in your garage while you sleep, but if you don't do it before 500 miles the car will shut down until you do.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#133

Post by selfhoster11 »

tfvlrue wrote: post #26

I've been following this story for a while. When people say the soft serve machine is "broken", they really mean "unavailable to serve ice cream to customers". That could mean something as innocuous as performing a pasteurization cycle during the day (because it failed to run at night for some reason, perhaps the machine's clock is set wrong). It could also mean there is a physical problem with some part of the machi…

Machine clock being wrong? IDK about the US, but in the UK we have at least 2 different radio-clock signals to choose from for machine synchronisation (one is domestic, one is based in Germany so you can still get it if reception is good). Neither requires internet access or any setup, and is cheap enough to integrate into sub-$30 electronics.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#134

Post by notreallyserio »

gruez wrote: post #78
notreallyserio wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ice cream @ a McD is a loss-leader (soft serve) or minor line item (McFlurrys) while it is the core product of DQ, despite their hot food offerrings. IMO this is actually the point being made. There's no need to run a loss leader if the competition doesn't exist.

1. if it's a loss leader that they don't want to continue, why not just... stop offering it? After all, you see "participating restaurant" disclaimers everywhere. Why can't a particular franchise just choose not to participate if it's not in DQ territory? 2. Regardless of whether it's a loss leader, I doubt the marginal cost of the ice cream is more than the $1 or whatever the discounted price is. They paid for the e…

As the theory goes, they want to stop DQ from moving in more than they want to recover the counter space used by the offline ice cream machine.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#135

Post by dragonwriter »

jaywalk wrote: post #11
maerF0x0 wrote: post #2

I cant think of anything more definitionally anti-competitive than keeping mcflurry machines available so you can crush any DQ that pops up in your vicinity by fixing it ("oh whoops... it was unplugged!"), and then also crushing a business that aims to solve your problem to help serve customers better. Let's get the FTC on this, afaik it's illegal to advertise a product you have no intention of actually serving. eg:…

And now that car dealer ads have to specify the exact car they're referring to (by VIN or stock number), that one car will often be the only one the amazing deal applies to and once it's gone, so is the deal. At least somebody can actually get that deal now, so it's better I guess.

> And now that car dealer ads have to specify the exact car they're referring to (by VIN or stock number), that one car will often be the only one the amazing deal applies to and once it's gone, so is the deal.

Sure, if its just one they have to identify it and say something like “1 at this price” but that also tells you up front what the deal is.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#136

Post by sandworm101 »

registeredcorn wrote: post #125
sandworm101 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It means that they just open up and clean the machine each day, just like every other appliance that touches food. The MD machine was designed to run without daily cleaning.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite following: Employees do clean these machines every day, but because of how it's designed they don't need to do so? Is this something kind of like: I can change my motor oil every 500 miles my car is driven, but according to the manufacturer I don't need to do so that often?

By "cleaning" I mean opening it up, unscrewing things, and cleaning the internal mechanisms of the machine to remove any leftover ice cream before it goes bad.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#137

Post by runnerup »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #105
runnerup wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also it can mean that the first half of the lunch rush used up all the frozen ice cream and it can’t freeze new ice cream instantly. So the later part of a rush period will often have unacceptable soft ice cream. When I ran frozen daiquiri machines it took a lot of finesse to make it through a busy night. Have to constantly manage the temperatures and levels to a nearly absurd precision while doing the rest of your j…

Are you sure that's ever an issue with McDonald's? I've been under the impression that McDonald's Taylor ice cream machines are freeze-on-demand.

If that were the case I would never get soggy/wet/melted McFlurries, but I do sometimes.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#138

Post by rascul »

tfvlrue wrote: post #26

I've been following this story for a while. When people say the soft serve machine is "broken", they really mean "unavailable to serve ice cream to customers". That could mean something as innocuous as performing a pasteurization cycle during the day (because it failed to run at night for some reason, perhaps the machine's clock is set wrong). It could also mean there is a physical problem with some part of the machi…

Broken could also mean that nobody has bothered to refill the machine. In my experience working at McDonald's many years ago, it was actually incredibly rare for the ice cream machine to be down for any reason besides nobody has filled it. When cars are wrapped around the building, line is out the door, and you're short two people, nobody is going to take the five minutes to fill the ice cream machine.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#139

Post by datavirtue »

ansible wrote: post #131
kmeisthax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to wonder if Taylor agreed to custom-build McDonalds an ice cream machine specifically because they figured they had implied license to hose franchisees on service costs. Or, in other words, if McDonalds had said "make the machine reliable enough to serve ice cream 100% of the time with no service calls", then Taylor would have charged 10x or something. The fact that McDonalds is libeling Kytch sounds like Tay…

From what I understand, Subway is also very strict with the franchisees. At least as far as food suppliers go. It is all in the name of "quality" or more truthfully "consistency". Even so, unless you're a relatively small regional chain, you'd think that having at least two different equipment suppliers would help corporate drive down costs for the franchisees, and thereby make more profit for themselves. That's what…

Every restaurant franchise has strict guidelines for every detail. If they don't everything will go to shit. They'll end up like Denny's.

Re: Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's

#140

Post by Topgamer7 »

dang wrote: post #97

Related: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325507 - Nov 2021 (138 comments) McDonald’s unreliable ice cream machines reportedly under FTC investigation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28407525 - Sept 2021 (41 comments) The Feds Want to Know What the McFuck Is Going on with the McFlurry Machines - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2838656…

I'm curious about how you keep track of these, you just filtering titles with wired and Mc that hits the front page?

You're always on the ball dang!

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