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We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#191

Post by twothreeone »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #167
twothreeone wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the argument though. The argument is that rent seeking as a business strategy is a deeply flawed and counter productive economic practice that ultimately limits our species' technological advancements and societal progress. The sooner we move past it, the better off we will all be. I agree that you should be able to create whatever you want and keep it 100%. So, clearly if someone were to steal your creati…

I don't like your redefinition of "rent seeking" at all. If I create an original piece of art, and publish it digitally, preventing other people from freely copying that art is not rent seeking - the thing I created didn't exist in any form before I created it, and I'm not trying to "extract rent" from you by preventing you from creating any of your own works. Now, like I said previously, there are currently issues w…

See, even the name is misleading because it's not a right - it's really a prohibition. We can agree or disagree about definitions, but I think it is self-evident that defending and enforcing a prohibition on creating zero-cost copies of digital media requires bending over backwards to undo the very properties of the technology that make it desirable to those who want to profit off of it. To me that sure sounds like rent seeking.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#192

Post by RussianCow »

megablast wrote: post #189
bonestamp2 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and with these new machines, they should have two of them (for several reasons). I worked there for a couple years in high school and summertime was just order after order of ice cream. The lost profit from the only machine being broken, or during it's downtime to chill the soft serve liquid after a refill, would pay back the investment in one summer, not to mention the customer service improvement. The ad ca…

Do they even make a profit on ice creams? I doubt it.

Of course they do. The cost of the ingredients is on the order of cents, the marginal cost of labor negligible, and the cost of the machines can be amortized over many thousands of servings.

But even if they didn't, it's a cheap way to get people to show up and potentially order other, higher margin items. If your machine is broken, you lose that funnel and your customers go elsewhere.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#193

Post by Maxious »

majormajor wrote: post #135
PedroBatista wrote: post #93

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 so…

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 th…

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

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#194

Post by Liquix »

iFixit is a strange entity. Their website, repair kits, and tutorials are all excellent. The amount of success they've had in championing right to repair initiatives in legal arenas is commendable. But it's not so great that the two are intertwined. It seems inevitable that conflicts of interests will arise between their exclusive deals with manufacturers, business selling repair kits, and increasing influence in the legal system.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#195

Post by raverbashing »

BoorishBears wrote: post #18
tedunangst wrote: post #4

What's the over/under on how many franchises will now resume selling ice cream?

I think they're going to stop selling ice cream period as a company. If it was important to their bottom line McDonalds would have done something as a collective rather than having individuals enter this fight for back-channel repair options. At some point they'll probably have their main contracts expire and stop dealing with the mess altogether.

You're assuming McD cares about anything but how much money they can get from their franchisees next quarter

"You're fixing our crappy machine yourself (translation: figure out code XYZ means it was overfilled or that AYZ means it froze and needs to be flushed) instead of hiring a service technician where we make some more money on top? We can't allow that!"

McDs are one of the worse franchises to own. Very tightly controlled with minuscule profit margins

I'm sure a lot of older franchisees want nothing but sell their businesses, especially in areas with lowering traffic

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#196

Post by IWeldMelons »

cyberax wrote: post #136
coconut08 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then why is it that its only the ice cream machines that have problems not not things like the soda fountain any other food production tool?

In general, acidic or basic foods are very safe from bacterial contamination standpoint. Soda is very acidic (due to all that dissolved carbon dioxide). It's not that it doesn't get bacteria (they live everywhere), but it's unlikely to get pathogenic bacteria. This makes sense, a highly acidic environment is very different from a human body. That's why foods such as milk, ice cream, potato or egg salad, are the most…

Soda is not "very acidic", for the exception of coke, which has strong acid added to it. Carbonic acid is very weak, and won't prevent bacteria from growing.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#197

Post by omeid2 »

PedroBatista wrote: post #93

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 so…

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

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#198

Post by imtringued »

listenallyall wrote: post #113
mcdow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been a while since I first watched the video. I would imagine the ice cream machines are a relatively small part of the McDonald's business. As evidenced by the fact that McDonalds ice cream has been an issue for quite a while. I would imagine franchises of a similar caliber to McD's also exploit their owner-operators on a similar scale because they can, we just don't necessarily hear about it because McDonalds is th…

I'd suggest the quality of McDonald's ingredients is superior than the vast majority of restaurants that rely on Sysco or US Foods. Just my opinion, I know it's not going to convince anyone whose mind is already made up about McDonald's.

Sure you can have french fries made from the best fat and potatoes but it doesn't change the fact that you're eating a burger with french fries instead of a steak with baked potatoes.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#199

Post by imtringued »

lbourdages wrote: post #31
jessriedel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the last sentence. If the machines are frequently broken, that damages the Macdonald's brand in the consumer's eyes. And if the franchisee's are paying unnecessary costs, making a Macdonald's franchise less lucrative for the owner-operator, that will lead to fewer franchises renewals and new franchises in the future.

I'm sure corporate has done the math and concluded that whatever money the machine provider pays them is higher than any expected losses in franchise revenue due to franchise owners quitting due to poor ice cream sales.

I'm pretty sure that ice cream is a high margin product like drinks and McDonald's has found an indirect way to extract most of the margins. The problem is that the technician service fees are a fixed cost designed to be revenue maximizing for the average restaurant. Franchises selling enough ice cream to pay the fixed costs stay in the game, the ones who don't simply keep them out of order. This is effectively a price discrimination strategy. By making the machine mandatory, they can offer the menu item in every restaurant, but they only have to collect money in proportion of ice cream revenue.
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