a small company of 2 people created a device called "Kytch," to help easily fix the Mcdonalds ice cream machines that are always broken. it can also predict when a malfunction could happen.
every mcdonalds franchise owner loved this new product because of all the money they saved on repairs. many of them reported spending "thousands of dollars per month in service fees" to the Taylor company in order to fix the ice cream machines.
the Taylor company creates the ice cream machines mcdonalds uses. this company is the only one professionally trained to clean their product because it is so complicated for everyone else to learn. the taylor company says "25% of the company revenue was made on repairs and maintenance." that's a huge amount for just the repairs.
(slightly off topic but still relevant). the Taylor company and Kytch creators worked on a previous device together called frobot. the frobot has the same problem as the ice cream machines: they malfuntion too often. "It became clear to us that there's way more money in broken money machines than machines that actually work" says Kytch co founder Jeremy O'Sullivan.
when mcdonalds discovered Kytch, they told the franchisees to stop using it. McDonald's said in the following statement "After we learned that Kytch's unapproved device was being tested by some of our franchisees, we held a call to better understand what it was and subsequently communicated a potential safety concern to franchisees."
this "safety concern" was bullshit because Taylor decided to reverse engineer a kytch, and use it for themselves. to add insult to injury, McDonald's went so far as to warn other companies, including Coca-Cola and Burger King, not to buy Kytch products. the $900 million lawsuit is an estimate of how much kytch would be worth today if mcdonalds didnt sabotage them.
it makes sense for Taylor to fight so hard for the broken machines since they get paid to repair them. but its a mystery why mcdonalds hates kytch and is siding with Taylor. maybe mcdonalds gets a commission for every repair? nobody knows for sure, but that theory makes sense
this video shows you how complicated and time consuming it is to clean a mcdonald ice cream maker.
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Nope, no machine is too complex unless it's completely proprietary nonsense and ice cream machines are basically just giant mixers. I managed a few restaurants for a short period of my life, it's not that it's too hard to learn how to fix it's that they have special codes that allow them to access the software. It's how these companies stay in business, they don't make money off the machines, most of their income is repairing and maintaining them.
Luckily I managed a small chain that wasn't corporate, so we phased out any bullshit products like that. If it couldn't be repaired by any general handyman, we got rid of it. We had a gelato machine that was similar and the closest technician was 90 minutes away, lots of fatties would get mad at us when they couldn't get their gelato for dessert. The fatties rejoiced when we got rid of it and were able to serve gelato full-time
and the majority of the time it wasn't even broken. It just automatically triggers a code after a certain amount of time, they say it's "required scheduled maintenance" but it's basically just a fee for a guy to show up, type in a code and invoice you until he comes back to do the same thing every 2 months. It's a total scam but it's kinda funny McDonalds is in on it
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Wired had an overly lengthy article last April and yeah: corporates gonna corporate. Location owners were happy, Taylor made less money, so the thing has to go. https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/ (if paywalled, use https://12ft.io/ )
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