This “smoking gun” killed the McDonald’s ice cream hackers’ startup
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There is even a website:
https://mcbroken.com/
Funny thing is most of these machines tend to “break” a few hours before closing time. The cleaning/disinfecting cycle is 4 hours apparently and probably the teenagers that work the evening shift couldn’t care less, so they start the cleaning early and just tell customers that it’s broken. Sounds reasonable to me
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AmanoJyaku
Ars Praefectus
Location-based pricing is a thing. Here in NYC, a bacon McDouble is ~$5.
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You think someone earning $7.25 an hour is paying their monthly bills with stock dividends? Someone making minimum wage is almost guaranteed to have almost no savings and aren't likely to have hard assets. What? A $2500 vehicle maybe? That would be a $125 fine ... which is a speeding ticket. You would honestly need a bare deterrent minimum fine level because many (most) lower-income people living paycheck to paycheck would likely be facing $0 fines.
Give that same speeding ticket to a dude who lives in a $5 million McMansion, $250K in the bank, and two $80K vehicles ... and they are paying $262,508. Some dude who owns a $35 million yacht plus a $250 million investment portfolio ... they'd get a $14,250,000 speeding ticket. Yeah. That would absolutely get everybody's attention and make people at every resource level seriously consider speeding.
I'm not necessarily endorsing the scheme, but your argument makes absolutely no sense. The place where the policy would hit hardest is the middle class, homeowners specifically, where a major chunk of liquid income maintains a primary residence which is also a reasonably valuable asset. And that bit really could be handled with a progressive rate and maybe a degree of exemption for primary residences.
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You speak as if you are not in the US. Is that the case?
What you're really asking for is more socialist democratic candidates and progress on issues most people care about. Unfortunately, given the near-deadlock that a polarizing two party system can impose on our single-choice elections, moving to a voting method that encourages working together, such as open primary elections and ranked choice voting (RCV), is probably the best way forward.
Notably, Alaska's last election used RCV, which hopefully survives the war that the national Republican party now seems to be waging against it, because it seems to have resulted in exactly the kind of changes desired:
https://fairvote.org/new-unite-america-report-shows-the-benefits-of-rcv-in-alaska/
Maine already uses RCV to elect congress reps, and Nevada is taking steps toward RCV:
https://alaskapublic.org/2023/09/19...-system-is-praised-and-criticized-nationally/
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I learned about the McDonald's case in a business law class. In the brief that I read, as you correctly point out, the victim only requested 20K to cover her medical bills. It was the jury who awarded her more for her pain and severing.
Additionally, McDonalds only increased the temperature, to meet customer's demands for "hotter coffee". It's not an excuse, but it is the reason the coffee was served at that temperature, and sadly the lady suffered for that decision.
In the class we talked about the choice McDonalds had to make, either cover the individual's medical expenses and open them up to lability for anyone burned by coffee in the future or go to court and defend their actions. In the end they probably should have just covered the medical expenses, lowered the temperature of the coffee, instead of defending their actions. However, McDonalds didn't intentionally seek to cause harm to the lady, one could argue (poorly) that the lady wanted hotter coffee since she ordered it from McDonalds instead of a competitor who was offering slightly colder coffee.
In the end what I learned, is the case was entirely cut and dry, and it wasn't simply McDonalds offering 190°. They did their market research before increasing the temperature. They determine the benefits of customers being more satisfied with the product, outweighed the potential lability.
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The penalty is supposed to act as a deterrent. A flat fine can't deter everybody evenly. It's a week's labor for one offender, while another's investments earn more than the fine during the time he's pulled over for a ticket to be written.
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1000x this. I usually get my coffee from local joints where I can lower the temperature with milk. If I go to Starbucks I have to order it "130" which means 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess they add a bit of cool water or something.
I HATE scalding my tongue. I guess some folks eat to live instead of live to eat and don't care if they scorch their tastebuds.
Fast food places are the worst. I always order a milk and an empty cup so I can drink it right away.
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A billionaire losing 99% of their assets is just a less wealthy, but still wealthier than 90% of Americans. While someone making minimum wage losing even 5% of their earnings is flirting with a never-ending debt spiral until their life falls apart completely. The only way for a fine to a person making minimum wage can be equivalent to someone making 7- and 8-figure salaries is if the fine to the millionaires is essentially 100% of everything they own and make. Because that's the impact of even small fines to people making minimum wage. It upends everything. They risk losing the roof over their heads, their jobs, having property repossessed, going hungry, etc, etc. Because it's not about how big the fine is. It's about what they have left over afterward.
Which goes back to what I've said multiple times already -- if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then it's not a crime for anyone rich enough to afford it. And that is EXACTLY how the wealthy and their corporations treat fines -- it's just the cost of doing business.
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Praetorian
Perhaps there is some collusion between the owners of Taylor machines and McD's corporate that its a win-win. Notice how Taylor kept wanting to introduce a feature of network monitoring and still hasn't...for years!
Personally, I no longer visit or contribute to McDonalds bottom line. But there are icecream stands and places like Rita's that use machines to make custard/softserve/gilato and might be Taylor machines...
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Ah American Capitalism, yes you can fight us, win and still lose everything you ever worked for!
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That's at GrubHub's extortionate rates...
On the McDonald's App, for a location within walking distance of me, it's $2.99 and bacon is $2.19.
OK, I was wrong, and Jesus Rastafarian Christ that bacon is a rip-off of biblical proportions... If I walked to that McDonald's I'd pass a grocery store that sells a pack of 10-slices of pre-cooked bacon for $5.
Though, the McDonald's's does a buy-one, get-one sale if you get the McDouble and value fries that, along with a value drink, brings it to $5.98.
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Yes. People have challenged them and lost. Outside of the car franchises they’re legal and pretty standard.
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With an exception of very high volume high profit stores, most of those stores are owned in the US at least because one franchisee was removed and they haven’t found a new one yet to take over.
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Interesting read. Two party only and no term limits is part of the issue too.
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I used to live in a state with legislative term limits, and they don't really help. Lobbyists end up with more power because they're the only ones who have been around long enough to know how things work, and everybody spends their final term lining up their next gig instead of governing.
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After much persuasion, my kids convinced me to step foot into a current McD "restaurant" to get one of their much vaunted "burgers" - so they don't miss out on the McD experience which their peers have all had.
Sure thing. (I hated every second of that current McD experience. The "cashier" was very good with customer service, although obviously it isn't one of their main tasks these days.) My fam walked out with our takeaway bags of burgers and fries.
And the kids have never asked for a repeat experience. Not even for the drive-thru.
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McDonalds is right up there with Monsanto and Raytheon and and Nestle in "dear God how can you buy product from this company and sleep at night unless you absolutely cannot afford to survive without it" terms
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The Geeman
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
As with all big corporates there's a tipping point from which 'provide a good service, make decent money' tips to 'we're big enough to make loads of money regardless of the service'.
We can all list them.
I used to occasionally have Maccies' fries and shake and usually ended up with just fries until I found what's in them. The rest has always seemed flaccid junk to me. Hooray for 5 Guys! Haha
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In my travels, I found that the McDonalds outlets outside the U.S. are generally nicer, and more up-to-date (with the ordering kiosks). And McCafes are full-blown coffee counters, like Starbucks, not just branding for the coffee drinks.
Can't say whether that's due to the urban locations I came across, or more a function of the older classic suburban locations common to my area.
I rarely eat McDonalds at home in the U.S., except when I get a craving for a breakfast item, and I don't see that getting any more frequent based on the $7-8 a biscuit w/egg and hash brown cost last time I went, and the upcharge for anything but coffee for the full combo.
Menu wise, I did find the chicken wings served on the Italian and German menus to be pretty tasty, though I'm sure they're "bad" in some way. But I am a sucker for fried chicken.
I haven't had the soft serve since I was a kid.
Another thing that being abroad has made me realize that the cost of fast (processed) food is getting out of hand, and how the affordable, genuine food that's more the norm elsewhere (particularly in Asia), is missed.
Here, I mostly limit myself to either In-n-Out (good for fast food, but important to remember, it's still fast food; treats employees well), or Popeye's (the fried chicken thing) every few months.
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I would not be shocked to discover that repair calls are systematically designed to to be Taylor's ink cartridges.
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I also dont see how this company is any way a competitor to Taylor, since it alerts of an issue. They are not trying to take the fixing business.
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Ars is written for, and primary read by, an American audience.
Can we please, Please, PLEASE not do this units bullshit every single fucking time stuff like this comes up?
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Their device provides error messages to the franchise in easy to understand language, thus allowing them to fix it themselves and not call a Taylor service tech as often.
It only competes with Taylor in the sense that Taylor specifically set up their business model around requiring repeated service visits, and Kytch removes the need for that service.
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I'm surprised no one has written a browser extension that does the conversions for people. As often as I've seen it across the web, it should be already available.
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I saw a play at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC called Smart, where the daughter wanted to help train Jennie, the assistant she put in her mother's home by having it's creator listen to everything said in the room. Daughter had some issues when she had a man over and intimate conversation was heard. But when Mom fell, the listener called 911, which saved Mom's life. EST is a great Off-Broadway theater. I've never seen a bad play there.
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Well, how does the extension know wether it is Fahrenheit or Celsius if people write ° instead of °F / °C / K ?
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I guess it might depend on what you mean by "travels".
If internationally, you are generally visiting McD in touristy sorts of areas, then sure, I'd expect the, be be nicer and better, just like they seem to be in touristy areas in the US. Like there is a big difference between the McD near me (suburbs outside of a small city) and the McD you'll find in Times Square or on the strip in Las Vegas.
But if you mean, "I moved to France and lived in the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence for a few years," and the local McD's were consistently nicer I guess I'd be a touch surprised.
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Ars also purports to be science-focussed, so SI Units should be its primary units.
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The SI Unit of temperature is the Kelvin, do you really want Ars and Ars commentariat to exclusively report temperatures in Kelvin?
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Given that the difficulty in running a take-away business selling coffee pressurized to at least 12 atmospheres which explodes into superheated steam the moment you open it would be considerable - it should have been pretty obvious the units that were being used weren't celsius.
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Tell me you've never seen a McDonald's ad without telling me you've never seen a McDonald's ad.
I can't remember the last time there was one emphasizing their Happy Meals. It's always breakfasts, chicken sandwiches, and all their various McCafe coffee products nowadays.
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Yes though given the number of physicists on this board, electron-volts would also be acceptable.
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Yeah, that checks out as an average. I was replying to a post asking "what should I buy for a business" that had already excluded restaurants anyway. Your first restaurant? You'll spend at least a couple years either barely breaking even or shoveling more money in the pit. And you'll definitely be working 80+ hours a week, which, while it's not ideal, has an ending.
Much more than the average, I'm curious the median income. There's got to be some heavy outliers that skew the average much higher than the ground truth: airports, Times Square, that sort. I know our local fella (7 restaurants) does NOT live the sort of life that 7x150k would suggest. He's firmly upper middle class. Firmly upper, firmly middle.
But you can buy a tool truck and make money relatively quickly, especially if you have existing relationships with mechanics -- and I'd think one might not want to do a tool truck unless those relationships already exist. I know our Cornwell guy stole a lot of Matco's business by being much, much more responsive: he'd be there in less than an hour to replace broken sockets, wrenches, that sort of thing, and must have had a bunch of specialty tools in another location -- where Matco was special order, and would take a week, Cornwell would be that hour or so.
(I've a vivid memory of my lead tech getting stuck on an Infiniti, iirc the QX40 -- it's a weird V8, only in that model, and there's a weird wrench that's absolutely necessary. He got stuck without the wrench and Matco said "Thursday" while Cornwell said "right after lunch," and ever after had half of [tech]'s business.)
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IOW they decided take the risk, and the lady got burned due to their decision, resulting in a jury deciding they would have to pay for it. It came out in discovery that many previous customers had also suffered burns from excessively hot coffee, so McDonalds deciding to take the case to court was an incomprehensibly stupid decision.
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