I scream, you scream, we all scream for the right to repair
April 21, 2021 1:16 PM Subscribe
Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out.
Related Previously: McBroken
Related Previously: McBroken
This is amazing. We buy $30k VNAs and wirebonding machines. They come with schematics and parts lists and a phone number that leads to a friendly engineer who will help you repair things for free. Our industry is much smaller than this one. I don't understand how anybody puts up with this.
posted by eotvos at 2:18 PM on April 21, 2021 [16 favorites]
The Kytch couple tells WIRED they’re planning to file a lawsuit against some McDonald’s franchisees who they believe are colluding with Taylor by handing over their Kytch devices to the ice cream machine giant and allowing them to be reverse-engineered—a violation of the franchisees' agreement with KytchAh. There are no heroes in this story. Perhaps some victims.
posted by eotvos at 2:18 PM on April 21, 2021 [16 favorites]
It would be a great right-to-repair story if Kytch didn't have an anti-reverse-engineering clause in their agreement with franchisees. But I guess their venture-capitalist funders didn't spend $$$ on the trip to Hax in Shenzhen to reverse-engineer Taylor's machine just to have that trade secret slip out.
But also — eww on the nightly self-pasteurization cycle rather than a full clean. Sugar + milk fat + other protein goo — imagine what that could do at the wrong temperature: McSlurry.
posted by scruss at 2:18 PM on April 21, 2021 [12 favorites]
But also — eww on the nightly self-pasteurization cycle rather than a full clean. Sugar + milk fat + other protein goo — imagine what that could do at the wrong temperature: McSlurry.
posted by scruss at 2:18 PM on April 21, 2021 [12 favorites]
I'm not too versed in right-to-repair theories, but isn't the act of suing franchisees/ competitors who supposedly allowed this product to be reverse-engineered a little ironic?
Also any business built on the back of another, much larger, business that could easily offer the product seems really really fragile at best.
posted by Think_Long at 2:20 PM on April 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
Also any business built on the back of another, much larger, business that could easily offer the product seems really really fragile at best.
posted by Think_Long at 2:20 PM on April 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
1. Doesn't it seem like it's a bit dangerous to build a company around someone else's products' shortcomings? All they have to do is improve the product and boom, you're out of business.
2. Seems like they should have made a better ice cream machine instead of a device to make existing machines slightly less terrible.
3. Seems like McDonalds didn't have to do anything fancy, literally just add the functionality to their machines. OR they could just have bought the little guys, no muss no fuss.
posted by goddess_eris at 2:24 PM on April 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
2. Seems like they should have made a better ice cream machine instead of a device to make existing machines slightly less terrible.
3. Seems like McDonalds didn't have to do anything fancy, literally just add the functionality to their machines. OR they could just have bought the little guys, no muss no fuss.
posted by goddess_eris at 2:24 PM on April 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
My sister-in-law and brother-in-law got sick off fast food ice cream. Like, puke and shit and wanna die for three days. Since then, no fast food ice cream for us. Shudder.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:30 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:30 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I mean, I guess that I still feel sympathetic for people who are routinely disappointed by McDonald's not having a working ice cream machine (and don't have a better option nearby, such as anything else). But, yeah, this seems not only hypocritical on Kytch's part, but also incredibly vulnerable to being superseded by the ice cream machine company itself.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:35 PM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:35 PM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was also surprised that their response to finding out that Taylor’s machine used fragile and outdated tech was not to make something better but to just provide better monitoring. I assume they looked at the relationship between Taylor and McDonald’s (and the manufacturing costs) and went with the simplest saleable option but it seems like a missed opportunity.
posted by cali at 2:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by cali at 2:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream."
-Wallace Stevens.
posted by clavdivs at 2:55 PM on April 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream."
-Wallace Stevens.
posted by clavdivs at 2:55 PM on April 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
Sounds to me like Taylor and McDonald's have an undisclosed arrangement whereby McD's gets a chunk of the (amazingly high) maintenance fees franchisees pay to Taylor, and that McD's is using Taylor to in effect extract more money from franchisees without having to acknowledge it, which would probably trigger all kinds of pushback and might even violate the franchise agreement.
I see a threat to disclose that as the biggest leverage to encourage a settlement offer from McD's and Taylor in any lawsuit.
posted by jamjam at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2021 [13 favorites]
I see a threat to disclose that as the biggest leverage to encourage a settlement offer from McD's and Taylor in any lawsuit.
posted by jamjam at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2021 [13 favorites]
I don't feel particularly bad for Kytch because even their original concept was to essentially automate people out of jobs and their pivot was a subscription service based on hacking into the secret menu. I do find the onion layers of bs in this story fascinating, though. Deliberately obfuscated equipment, predatory maintenance contracts, possible kickbacks to Corporate McDonalds, industrial espionage, anti-reverse sharing contracts, etc. It's like at every step everyone has taken the least ethical option, with the possible exception of the franchisees.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 3:23 PM on April 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 3:23 PM on April 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
I would like this to be turned into a Serial-esque podcast form. "What's the real purpose of this hidden menu?" (end of episode music stinger. commercial for squarespace. promo for another podcast on the Maximum Shake Network.)
A future Coen Brothers dramedy may also be a good fit, but I figure that's some years in legal system time away.
posted by Drastic at 3:25 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
A future Coen Brothers dramedy may also be a good fit, but I figure that's some years in legal system time away.
posted by Drastic at 3:25 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
For the last decade or so, I've been amazed that enough people go to McDonalds to keep them in business...
posted by Windopaene at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
While I agree that in a normal market that Kytch should have designed a better machine, I don't think that McDonald's would have allowed their franchisees to purchase the better machine. As noted by others above, it seems like McDonald's has an incestuous relationship with Taylor and makes money from the relationship. Kytch took the path of least resistance and formed a company that could be run by 2 people with a minimum of startup money. Getting into the automated ice cream machine business would have required a lot more capital and people with no guarantees that a better machine would have been considered by McDonald's corporate.
posted by ensign_ricky at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by ensign_ricky at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2021 [10 favorites]
I don't feel particularly bad for Kytch because even their original concept was to essentially automate people out of jobs
This is a weird argument to make about a situation where the machines are out of service for extended periods of time because... no one comes to fix them.
From TFA: "the four-hour pasteurization process fails and offers a generic, inscrutable error message—meaning that the machine won’t work until the entire four hours of heating and freezing repeats, often in the middle of peak ice cream sales hours. The result can be hundreds of dollars in sales immediately lost..."
From the machine owner's perspective downtime is a straight loss of money and they often don't know why the machine is down or even if it's down: "Today he wakes up every morning at 5:30, picks up his phone, and confirms that all his machines have passed their treacherous heat treatment. Another franchisee’s technician told me that, despite Kytch nearly doubling its prices over the past two years and adding a $250 activation fee, it still saves their owner “easily thousands of dollars a month.”"
I doubt this puts any repair techs out of work. If anything it gets them out sooner to fix the machines and prevents service techs from showing up to address unnecessary issues like the machine simply having been overfilled, etc.
This is completely a story about Taylor having a captive audience and being totally lazy in serving them.
posted by GuyZero at 4:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
This is a weird argument to make about a situation where the machines are out of service for extended periods of time because... no one comes to fix them.
From TFA: "the four-hour pasteurization process fails and offers a generic, inscrutable error message—meaning that the machine won’t work until the entire four hours of heating and freezing repeats, often in the middle of peak ice cream sales hours. The result can be hundreds of dollars in sales immediately lost..."
From the machine owner's perspective downtime is a straight loss of money and they often don't know why the machine is down or even if it's down: "Today he wakes up every morning at 5:30, picks up his phone, and confirms that all his machines have passed their treacherous heat treatment. Another franchisee’s technician told me that, despite Kytch nearly doubling its prices over the past two years and adding a $250 activation fee, it still saves their owner “easily thousands of dollars a month.”"
I doubt this puts any repair techs out of work. If anything it gets them out sooner to fix the machines and prevents service techs from showing up to address unnecessary issues like the machine simply having been overfilled, etc.
This is completely a story about Taylor having a captive audience and being totally lazy in serving them.
posted by GuyZero at 4:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
This is a weird argument to make about a situation where the machines are out of service for extended periods of time because... no one comes to fix them.
I took the original comment to mean that Frobot, the original project the Kytch creators were working on that inspired Kytch, was intended to replace fully-staffed frozen yogurt shops with a booth that required no human intervention to operate.
posted by chrominance at 5:19 PM on April 21, 2021 [8 favorites]
I took the original comment to mean that Frobot, the original project the Kytch creators were working on that inspired Kytch, was intended to replace fully-staffed frozen yogurt shops with a booth that required no human intervention to operate.
posted by chrominance at 5:19 PM on April 21, 2021 [8 favorites]
For the last decade or so, I've been amazed that enough people go to McDonalds to keep them in business...
Food deserts are a problem. Also: "In the Food Swamps of LA, McDonald’s Was Our Lifeboat."
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:31 PM on April 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
Food deserts are a problem. Also: "In the Food Swamps of LA, McDonald’s Was Our Lifeboat."
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:31 PM on April 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
I find some of these responses a little mystifying, but then again, I find a lot of things mystifying.
I read this story, I understand it about as well as I can. This couple designed first a product that worked *with* Taylor to make a modification to their product that they did not object to*. Then they made the Kytch, which at first they also did not object to.
*these days, a "fully-staffed" yogurt shop often has one employee and the customers serve themselves.
What people here seem to find appalling is that the couple who made the Kytch object to the fact that someone took their product and gave it to Taylor to reverse-engineer. Which they wrote a clause to prevent. So they should just...open source give their thing away because their product is meant to fix issues in an existing product? Help me out here.
They are not going to reinvent the wheel. Taylor has a monopoly. They are not going to fix what McDonald's doesn't care is broken and will remain broken. The system works for Taylor and for McDonald's. These two random people are not going to "disrupt" the industry by inventing a whole new system of ice cream dispensing. It seems like a nifty gadget that would help out franchisees quite a bit. I'm not surprised that Taylor and McDonald's didn't like it.
posted by 41swans at 5:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
I read this story, I understand it about as well as I can. This couple designed first a product that worked *with* Taylor to make a modification to their product that they did not object to*. Then they made the Kytch, which at first they also did not object to.
*these days, a "fully-staffed" yogurt shop often has one employee and the customers serve themselves.
What people here seem to find appalling is that the couple who made the Kytch object to the fact that someone took their product and gave it to Taylor to reverse-engineer. Which they wrote a clause to prevent. So they should just...open source give their thing away because their product is meant to fix issues in an existing product? Help me out here.
They are not going to reinvent the wheel. Taylor has a monopoly. They are not going to fix what McDonald's doesn't care is broken and will remain broken. The system works for Taylor and for McDonald's. These two random people are not going to "disrupt" the industry by inventing a whole new system of ice cream dispensing. It seems like a nifty gadget that would help out franchisees quite a bit. I'm not surprised that Taylor and McDonald's didn't like it.
posted by 41swans at 5:41 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
Okay, finally finished reading the whole article.
While I agree that in a normal market that Kytch should have designed a better machine, I don't think that McDonald's would have allowed their franchisees to purchase the better machine.
I kind of wonder about this, especially given that the Hax incubator people seemed to think the Taylor machine was ripe for reinventing. Sure, maybe McDonald's wouldn't have been interested, but does everyone have the same relationship with Taylor? Probably not the frozen yogurt enterprises that they were initially looking to compete with (ahem, sorry, "disrupt"), who are probably smaller fry and would have less to lose in any case since, unlike McDonald's, they wouldn't have a ton of other kitchen equipment from Taylor that would be put in jeopardy by switching.
But yeah, I get that the McDonald's McFlurry/milkshake business is pretty big and very hard to ignore. And the fact that Taylor didn't seem too bothered by the product until it became a genuine threat to part of their business is also a bit of a red flag.
posted by chrominance at 5:54 PM on April 21, 2021
While I agree that in a normal market that Kytch should have designed a better machine, I don't think that McDonald's would have allowed their franchisees to purchase the better machine.
I kind of wonder about this, especially given that the Hax incubator people seemed to think the Taylor machine was ripe for reinventing. Sure, maybe McDonald's wouldn't have been interested, but does everyone have the same relationship with Taylor? Probably not the frozen yogurt enterprises that they were initially looking to compete with (ahem, sorry, "disrupt"), who are probably smaller fry and would have less to lose in any case since, unlike McDonald's, they wouldn't have a ton of other kitchen equipment from Taylor that would be put in jeopardy by switching.
But yeah, I get that the McDonald's McFlurry/milkshake business is pretty big and very hard to ignore. And the fact that Taylor didn't seem too bothered by the product until it became a genuine threat to part of their business is also a bit of a red flag.
posted by chrominance at 5:54 PM on April 21, 2021
This is completely a story about Taylor having a captive audience and being totally lazy in serving them
I can't comment too much on this, I'm a little too close to some of the parties involved and would probably give too much away and one does not fuck with the Clown, but to say that Taylor and McD weren't interested in a net-connected freezer until Kytch came along is a little uninformed and unfair.
I personally witnessed IoT freezer projects being done at least half a decade ago, even longer for some other areas of the kitchen. Making that work in an organization as massive as McD, with all of its complex relationships between store and franchisee and equipment-maker and corporate.... it's...complicated. And slow.
Some areas of McD tech move a bit faster. The store near me is testing a Siri-like drive-thru order taking system and it's spooky how accurate it is.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:13 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
I can't comment too much on this, I'm a little too close to some of the parties involved and would probably give too much away and one does not fuck with the Clown, but to say that Taylor and McD weren't interested in a net-connected freezer until Kytch came along is a little uninformed and unfair.
I personally witnessed IoT freezer projects being done at least half a decade ago, even longer for some other areas of the kitchen. Making that work in an organization as massive as McD, with all of its complex relationships between store and franchisee and equipment-maker and corporate.... it's...complicated. And slow.
Some areas of McD tech move a bit faster. The store near me is testing a Siri-like drive-thru order taking system and it's spooky how accurate it is.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:13 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is a legal extortion racket, not a lovely wrestling match. If McDonald's thought selling ice cream mattered then they'd provide machines that worked. They don't think selling ice cream matters, they think extracting cash from franchisees matters. This device is not letting them get away with that. I think that's good.
The article says:
Resist the McDonald’s monarchy on decisions like equipment, and the corporation can end a restaurant’s lease on the literal ground beneath it, which McDonald's owns under its franchise agreement.
Better ice cream machines are probably out there but they're not an option.
posted by bleep at 6:33 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
The article says:
Resist the McDonald’s monarchy on decisions like equipment, and the corporation can end a restaurant’s lease on the literal ground beneath it, which McDonald's owns under its franchise agreement.
Better ice cream machines are probably out there but they're not an option.
posted by bleep at 6:33 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
Some areas of McD tech move a bit faster. The store near me is testing a Siri-like drive-thru order taking system and it's spooky how accurate it is.
Domain-specific voice recognition has been creepily accurate for over twenty years now, though it took another five years for computing power to get cheap enough that it wouldn't lag at times. It's the completely natural language stuff with all its variation that has and continues to provide the hilarity.
posted by wierdo at 7:06 PM on April 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
Domain-specific voice recognition has been creepily accurate for over twenty years now, though it took another five years for computing power to get cheap enough that it wouldn't lag at times. It's the completely natural language stuff with all its variation that has and continues to provide the hilarity.
posted by wierdo at 7:06 PM on April 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
For the last decade or so, I've been amazed that enough people go to McDonalds to keep them in business...
A couple of years ago I ordered through the McDonalds app, and was told the payment didn't go through. I tried two more times, with it finally succeeding the last time. Little did I know, it went through the first two times as well, because (my best guess in retrospect is) I was connected through McDonalds Wi-Fi, which due to its log-in page not having been satisfied, was failing to send the payment successful packets to the app, but was still sending the payment information from the app to the payment server. As a result, their system showed three orders from me, and charged me for all three, when I had only wanted one. Over a couple of weeks I went through a lot of calls to McDonalds local, McDonalds corporate, and my bank, and none of them would remedy the situation.
The Clown can burn as far as I care.
posted by JHarris at 7:13 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
A couple of years ago I ordered through the McDonalds app, and was told the payment didn't go through. I tried two more times, with it finally succeeding the last time. Little did I know, it went through the first two times as well, because (my best guess in retrospect is) I was connected through McDonalds Wi-Fi, which due to its log-in page not having been satisfied, was failing to send the payment successful packets to the app, but was still sending the payment information from the app to the payment server. As a result, their system showed three orders from me, and charged me for all three, when I had only wanted one. Over a couple of weeks I went through a lot of calls to McDonalds local, McDonalds corporate, and my bank, and none of them would remedy the situation.
The Clown can burn as far as I care.
posted by JHarris at 7:13 PM on April 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
For the last decade or so, I’ve been amazed that enough people go to McDonald’s to keep them in business...
McDonalds serves food to around 1% of the world population daily.
posted by MythMaker at 7:17 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
McDonalds serves food to around 1% of the world population daily.
posted by MythMaker at 7:17 PM on April 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
Sabotage! Destroy the machines of corruption!
All fixed, fast-freezing machines, with their train of ancient and venerable weaknesses and sweetheart deals, will be swept away; all new-formed ones will become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is creamy melts into air, all that is luscious is profaned, and we are at last compelled to face with sober senses the real conditions of soft serve and our relations with McDonalds.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:36 PM on April 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
All fixed, fast-freezing machines, with their train of ancient and venerable weaknesses and sweetheart deals, will be swept away; all new-formed ones will become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is creamy melts into air, all that is luscious is profaned, and we are at last compelled to face with sober senses the real conditions of soft serve and our relations with McDonalds.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:36 PM on April 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
JHarris, the bank should have been very quick to sort that out. I would find a new bank immediately, because next time it might be over $500 charge instead of a $5 one.
posted by Sterros at 9:02 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Sterros at 9:02 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
There are a lot of surprising things in this article, but I was most surprised when the writer called the Raspberry Pi a minicomputer.
posted by chrchr at 10:15 PM on April 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by chrchr at 10:15 PM on April 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
How does one actually read this article? The link takes me to a page with one paragraph and then a long series of unrelated videos.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:29 AM on April 22, 2021
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:29 AM on April 22, 2021
when the writer called the Raspberry Pi a minicomputer
Does that make the Pi Zero a microcomputer?
posted by flabdablet at 1:54 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Does that make the Pi Zero a microcomputer?
posted by flabdablet at 1:54 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
All that is creamy melts into air, all that is luscious is profaned, and we are at last compelled to face with sober senses the real conditions of soft serve and our relations with McDonalds.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist
...
...
Sometimes it’s too on the nose.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:43 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Ice Cream Socialist
...
...
Sometimes it’s too on the nose.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:43 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
The mistake that these entrepreneurs seem to have made was not noticing that their business model had changed, and therefore not noticing that their relationship with Taylor, the machine vendor had also completely changed.
In their FroYo start-up, they begin their relationship as a customer and potentially a large new market for Taylor's machines (and their aftersale services, of course!). Relationship is friendly, supportive, doors are opened and exceptions are made.
Then they switch to the Kytch device and become direct competitors on Taylor's aftersale services, i.e. their monopoly rents. As the story is written, the deterioration in their relationship seems to come as a surprise (!!) because of their pre-existing business relationship, whereas the assumption that this was inevitable should have formed the foundation of their strategy from well before they first soldered a Rasberry Pi onto anything.
It's inexplicable to me that they didn't aim to prove the concept quietly with some small franchisees and then go straight to McDonalds' HQ and announce "we just saved these guys X hundred thousand per year, we calculate that we could save you Y millions." All the actors in this story have completely different incentive structures, but the franchisees and McDonalds broadly speaking make money selling ice cream, whereas Taylor makes money selling single large pieces of capital and then has a monopoly on aftersales services on those lumps of capital. Machines that don't work well and require maintenance is an important part of their business and presumably provides their most consistent cashflow, and that's what Kytch was trying to disrupt.
Taylor can be presumed to have a great relationship with McDonalds, or they wouldn't be one of only two approved suppliers of the machine. But their incentives diverge on how frequently the ice cream machine should break down and how easy it should be to fix.
So the priority should have been to rapidly socially engineer their way into talking to the McDonalds board, turn them against Taylor on this issue and have their idea presented as a fait accompli to Taylor and all the franchises, and maybe to push either Taylor or McDonalds to buy them out. Rather than... letting Taylor get McDonalds onside and then having the two entities that created and own their entire market start suing them, lol.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 3:50 AM on April 22, 2021 [15 favorites]
In their FroYo start-up, they begin their relationship as a customer and potentially a large new market for Taylor's machines (and their aftersale services, of course!). Relationship is friendly, supportive, doors are opened and exceptions are made.
Then they switch to the Kytch device and become direct competitors on Taylor's aftersale services, i.e. their monopoly rents. As the story is written, the deterioration in their relationship seems to come as a surprise (!!) because of their pre-existing business relationship, whereas the assumption that this was inevitable should have formed the foundation of their strategy from well before they first soldered a Rasberry Pi onto anything.
It's inexplicable to me that they didn't aim to prove the concept quietly with some small franchisees and then go straight to McDonalds' HQ and announce "we just saved these guys X hundred thousand per year, we calculate that we could save you Y millions." All the actors in this story have completely different incentive structures, but the franchisees and McDonalds broadly speaking make money selling ice cream, whereas Taylor makes money selling single large pieces of capital and then has a monopoly on aftersales services on those lumps of capital. Machines that don't work well and require maintenance is an important part of their business and presumably provides their most consistent cashflow, and that's what Kytch was trying to disrupt.
Taylor can be presumed to have a great relationship with McDonalds, or they wouldn't be one of only two approved suppliers of the machine. But their incentives diverge on how frequently the ice cream machine should break down and how easy it should be to fix.
So the priority should have been to rapidly socially engineer their way into talking to the McDonalds board, turn them against Taylor on this issue and have their idea presented as a fait accompli to Taylor and all the franchises, and maybe to push either Taylor or McDonalds to buy them out. Rather than... letting Taylor get McDonalds onside and then having the two entities that created and own their entire market start suing them, lol.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 3:50 AM on April 22, 2021 [15 favorites]
Worth noting that most of the froyo shops are franchises too, with presumably similar cozy relationships between Taylor and pinkberry(or whatever) corporate.
posted by rockindata at 4:09 AM on April 22, 2021
posted by rockindata at 4:09 AM on April 22, 2021
Worth noting that most of the froyo shops are franchises too, with presumably similar cozy relationships between Taylor and pinkberry(or whatever) corporate.
Sure, that's a good way to think about how Taylor and its customers have divergent interests, and how the entrepreneurs messed this up.
Taylor was happy to support them in setting up a rival to their current Froyo customers, because this expanded their market. They'd presumably have been just as happy if these guys were setting up "O'Flurrys" automated ice cream stands in malls, even though this would make McDonalds mad.
Whereas McDonalds and Pinkberry and so on want Taylor's machines to keep on producing the stuff that their franchisees sell.
When the machine breaks down, Taylor makes money (services) and McDonalds / Pinkberry loses money (lost sales).
The fact that Taylor was happy to throw their existing franchise customers under the bus suggests that, as cosy as their relationship is with these corporates, they're aware of their economic interests. I'd be stunned if the corporates didn't feel the same way. So the idea should have been to exploit that split, not just focus on the bottom rung of the powerless franchisees, while allowing Taylor exploit their existing relationship with the franchise itself to squash their business.
Hopefully they learned a lesson and can now go directly to Pinkberry and say "here's how Taylor is making money at your expense, and as it happens, here is the solution to that problem".
posted by chappell, ambrose at 4:35 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sure, that's a good way to think about how Taylor and its customers have divergent interests, and how the entrepreneurs messed this up.
Taylor was happy to support them in setting up a rival to their current Froyo customers, because this expanded their market. They'd presumably have been just as happy if these guys were setting up "O'Flurrys" automated ice cream stands in malls, even though this would make McDonalds mad.
Whereas McDonalds and Pinkberry and so on want Taylor's machines to keep on producing the stuff that their franchisees sell.
When the machine breaks down, Taylor makes money (services) and McDonalds / Pinkberry loses money (lost sales).
The fact that Taylor was happy to throw their existing franchise customers under the bus suggests that, as cosy as their relationship is with these corporates, they're aware of their economic interests. I'd be stunned if the corporates didn't feel the same way. So the idea should have been to exploit that split, not just focus on the bottom rung of the powerless franchisees, while allowing Taylor exploit their existing relationship with the franchise itself to squash their business.
Hopefully they learned a lesson and can now go directly to Pinkberry and say "here's how Taylor is making money at your expense, and as it happens, here is the solution to that problem".
posted by chappell, ambrose at 4:35 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
This story is...oops all villains.
I vaguely remembered Ray Kroc being a milkshake machine salesman, which is how he found McDonald’s. I was so hopeful that he was a Taylor salesman and this would have a nice little historical tie in, but alas.
posted by shesdeadimalive at 5:25 AM on April 22, 2021 [6 favorites]
I vaguely remembered Ray Kroc being a milkshake machine salesman, which is how he found McDonald’s. I was so hopeful that he was a Taylor salesman and this would have a nice little historical tie in, but alas.
posted by shesdeadimalive at 5:25 AM on April 22, 2021 [6 favorites]
when the writer called the Raspberry Pi a minicomputer
"In a 1970 survey, The New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than US$25,000 (equivalent to $165,000 in 2019), with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least four thousand words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language, such as Fortran or BASIC."
Well, I mean, technically, right?
posted by Naberius at 6:33 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
"In a 1970 survey, The New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than US$25,000 (equivalent to $165,000 in 2019), with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least four thousand words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language, such as Fortran or BASIC."
Well, I mean, technically, right?
posted by Naberius at 6:33 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I guess the NYT definition still holds, but considering that blurb is pretty much describing a PDP-8, a Raspberry Pi is noticeably deficient in blinking lights and about 249⅞ lb of weight.
posted by scruss at 7:24 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 7:24 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Surely someone somewhere has stacked 250 Raspberry Pis together in a framework covered in LEDs.
posted by Drastic at 7:28 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Drastic at 7:28 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
So they should just...open source give their thing away because their product is meant to fix issues in an existing product?Declaring a thing public domain is quite a bit different from suing store owners for what is almost certainly covered by the right to open the thing you've purchased in most places.
posted by eotvos at 7:52 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The other thing I don't get is what is so bad about saying - these 2 companies are fucking us all over by not letting you fix your machine, buy this device which lets you fix your machine, but DONT GIVE IT TO THEM because they DONT want you to fix your machine. End result is just oops you can't fix your machine just like before. Giving the magic fixing machine to the guys who get rich off you not fixing your machine is incredibly self-defeating on all sides & im pretty sure doesn't make the inventors "just as bad".
posted by bleep at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by bleep at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Sorry - I realize my comment above doesn't really make sense. I remain convinced that suing people for reverse engineering electronics is ethically indefensible. I expressed it very badly.
posted by eotvos at 8:01 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by eotvos at 8:01 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Why are we putting the ethics on trial of the 2 individuals who actually provided a useful service, while the two enormous corporations who are fucking everyone in sight are treated like perfectly fair & rational businessmen who just need to be persuaded to do something different from the thing that's currently siphoning money into their pockets with no effort or investment. Doesn't make any sense.
posted by bleep at 8:18 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by bleep at 8:18 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not really judging the ethics of anyone involved (I mean, ultimately all three parties are just trying to extract maximal subscription/maintenance/rental fees from the franchisees).
I'm just confused by their legal stance of it being okay for them to hack Taylor's machines, but it's not okay for Taylor to hack their product. The article didn't go too deep into the argument, but on the surface it seems like they're trying to have it both ways.
posted by Think_Long at 8:37 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm just confused by their legal stance of it being okay for them to hack Taylor's machines, but it's not okay for Taylor to hack their product. The article didn't go too deep into the argument, but on the surface it seems like they're trying to have it both ways.
posted by Think_Long at 8:37 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The issue here is sort of like Apple taking inspiration from add-on apps like Growl - deciding “hey system-wide alerts are cool, let’s implement that natively”. Except in this parallel Apple would (a) be suspected of straight stealing Growl’s code rather than writing from scratch, (b) sending alarming emails to all Apple users incorrectly implying that Growl was going to harm their machines, and (c) threatening any company with Apple machines that using Growl would void any and all warranty and generally exuding a vibe of “you’ve got a real nice business here, be a shame if anything happened to it”.
I see no issue with a startup creating a product that addresses real or perceived shortcomings in another commercial product. I don’t have an issue with the latter product’s company realizing the startup had a good idea, and subsequently creating their own solution for the same shortcoming. But I absolutely find it wrong for the big company to go out of their way to sabotage the startup’s business through lies, pressure on users, and threats.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:37 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I see no issue with a startup creating a product that addresses real or perceived shortcomings in another commercial product. I don’t have an issue with the latter product’s company realizing the startup had a good idea, and subsequently creating their own solution for the same shortcoming. But I absolutely find it wrong for the big company to go out of their way to sabotage the startup’s business through lies, pressure on users, and threats.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:37 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's not ok for Taylor to hack their machines because franchisees are trying to live and Taylor & McDonalds are trying to steal.
posted by bleep at 8:53 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by bleep at 8:53 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm just confused by their legal stance of it being okay for them to hack Taylor's machines, but it's not okay for Taylor to hack their product
The C602 has two systems that talk over a wire inside and, from what I can glean, the third-party device is sniffing that traffic and/or injecting commands into the line. Reverse engineering that protocol and message system is 'hacking', I suppose, but I don't think they would need to break into the actual processor firmware to do what they were doing.
I kind of liken it to the OBD-II port on your car. You can listen in and send some queries that the car is obligated to answer. But a lot of brands have proprietary secret messages that can be sent to do other things to the car's internal systems. And, like Taylor, they don't want that information in the hands of mechanics and tuners.
This doesn't really explain or defend either side's actions. But I thought it might be an interesting thing to note.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:57 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
The C602 has two systems that talk over a wire inside and, from what I can glean, the third-party device is sniffing that traffic and/or injecting commands into the line. Reverse engineering that protocol and message system is 'hacking', I suppose, but I don't think they would need to break into the actual processor firmware to do what they were doing.
I kind of liken it to the OBD-II port on your car. You can listen in and send some queries that the car is obligated to answer. But a lot of brands have proprietary secret messages that can be sent to do other things to the car's internal systems. And, like Taylor, they don't want that information in the hands of mechanics and tuners.
This doesn't really explain or defend either side's actions. But I thought it might be an interesting thing to note.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:57 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
The right to repair keeps coming up as an issue. Apparently farmers have to hack their tractors too.
posted by ishmael at 9:08 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ishmael at 9:08 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I recently watched "The Founder" starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc and it was pretty good. I had always wondered how McDonalds, (and I assume the other franchises,) worked so it was educational. It also showed how much being a bastard is part of "business." Frankly though there is nothing in the article that makes me feel anything but meh towards the putative disruptors.
posted by Pembquist at 9:10 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Pembquist at 9:10 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
For the last decade or so, I've been amazed that enough people go to McDonalds to keep them in business...
Spoken like someone who hasn't walked past a McD's drive-through lately, especially in the pandemic.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:11 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
Spoken like someone who hasn't walked past a McD's drive-through lately, especially in the pandemic.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:11 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
Surely someone somewhere has stacked 250 Raspberry Pis together in a framework covered in LEDs.
Sure, but only if we're going clubbing.
posted by JHarris at 9:17 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sure, but only if we're going clubbing.
posted by JHarris at 9:17 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
One near my house that I see the cars lined up at the drive-through all the time. The question is, why?
posted by Windopaene at 9:54 AM on April 22, 2021
posted by Windopaene at 9:54 AM on April 22, 2021
It... provides food that people enjoy, at a price & speed/convenience they find favorable? Why so judgmental?
posted by CrystalDave at 10:06 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by CrystalDave at 10:06 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
The food tastes good & is available for purchase at affordable prices. It's not rocket science.
posted by bleep at 10:14 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by bleep at 10:14 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
Seriously, there’s a global pandemic and you’re not supposed to eat inside restaurants and they have a drive-thru. Easy as that.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I don't even own a TV and ugh, starbucks, their coffee is so burnt.
BINGO!
posted by Drastic at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2021 [13 favorites]
BINGO!
posted by Drastic at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2021 [13 favorites]
I got very excited when they got to the part about the Frobot. Last year, shortly before the pandemic, a competing Reis & Irvy frozen yogurt machine showed up in the cafeteria of the factory I work at. It had a robot arm that would fill your cup and add toppings and then charge you about double what it'd cost at any other froyo-themed storefront. Maybe watching the arm do its thing is worth that price in a mall food court, but it's much less impressive when it's surrounded by state of the art assembly lines with hundreds of industrial robot arms.
Nobody used it more than once. It disappeared within a month.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:12 PM on April 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
Nobody used it more than once. It disappeared within a month.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:12 PM on April 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm just confused by their legal stance of it being okay for them to hack Taylor's machines, but it's not okay for Taylor to hack their product. The article didn't go too deep into the argument, but on the surface it seems like they're trying to have it both ways.
The actual legal issue, afaik, is that the purchasers of the Kytch device signed a contract saying they wouldn't reverse-engineer it or provide anyone else access to it.
posted by GuyZero at 12:43 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The actual legal issue, afaik, is that the purchasers of the Kytch device signed a contract saying they wouldn't reverse-engineer it or provide anyone else access to it.
posted by GuyZero at 12:43 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
there are MeFites with much more refined coffee palates than I have.
McDonalds coffee works fine for the rest of us, they've taken some pains to improve their coffee and it's just fine. I don't live near a McDonalds, but when I need to eat something it's not the quality of the food I find distressing, it's all the garbage. I'd love to see less garbage, my gawd we create a lot of garbage.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:43 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
McDonalds coffee works fine for the rest of us, they've taken some pains to improve their coffee and it's just fine. I don't live near a McDonalds, but when I need to eat something it's not the quality of the food I find distressing, it's all the garbage. I'd love to see less garbage, my gawd we create a lot of garbage.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:43 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Right, but it's hypocritical to require your customers to sign such a contract and then claim that you're a banner case for right-to-repair. It seems like they're trying to co-opt a genuine issue of consumer rights and even to a certain degree social justice in order to ride its coattails of public sentiment. They may be legally within their rights to try to enforce this contract, but as far as I understand it a goal of the right-to-repair movement is to make such contracts unenforceable.
posted by biogeo at 2:14 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 2:14 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Though in fairness it's not clear how much of that angle is the Kytch people and how much is the author of the piece.
posted by biogeo at 2:15 PM on April 22, 2021
posted by biogeo at 2:15 PM on April 22, 2021
How is it hypocritical to ask that you not turn over this device to the company that will stop this device from being available if they get their hands on it?
posted by bleep at 2:19 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 2:19 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well, they apparently weren't just asking ; they're suing over the matter so it was apparently some part of their TOS. But again, it just comes back to that same thing - having a no-tamper clause in your own contract, but criticizing other orgs for doing the same.
Though in fairness it's not clear how much of that angle is the Kytch people and how much is the author of the piece.
Yeah, re-scanning it and you might be right, right-to-repair may be more of a hook than anything.
posted by Think_Long at 2:58 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Though in fairness it's not clear how much of that angle is the Kytch people and how much is the author of the piece.
Yeah, re-scanning it and you might be right, right-to-repair may be more of a hook than anything.
posted by Think_Long at 2:58 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Because "right to repair" means that once the device is yours you get to do what you want with it.
posted by biogeo at 3:03 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 3:03 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Because "right to repair" means that once the device is yours you get to do what you want with it.
Exactly. Reverse engineering an expensive money-making device to make it easier/faster to repair via an add-on isn't nearly the same as reverse engineering a diagnostic tool with the intent of selling your own knock-off version.
posted by GuyZero at 3:42 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Exactly. Reverse engineering an expensive money-making device to make it easier/faster to repair via an add-on isn't nearly the same as reverse engineering a diagnostic tool with the intent of selling your own knock-off version.
posted by GuyZero at 3:42 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's nothing wrong with creating third party diagnostic tools. Car manufacturers have been slowly siloing more and more shit behind their proprietary tools and it sucks. It would still suck if they weren't stupidly expensive and rendered useless the moment you stop paying for a subscription to use the thing you spent boucoup bucks to buy.
posted by wierdo at 5:23 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 5:23 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
If I may resurrect this post for a bit--
This video showed up in my YouTube recommends today, a 30 minute video (coincidentally, by someone with a name very similar to mine) making basically the same point as the Wired article, although without the right-to-repair angle.
Interestingly, it starts out with a message to the reporter very similar to the one in that piece. Like, if the Kytch people sent out email to multiple tech writers hoping to weaponize public opinion in their battle against McDonalds.
There are a lot of ways that this situation can be regarded as unfair to franchisees, and Taylor has obviously profited greatly, and unfairly, by keeping the workings of their machines a secret, as car manufacturers have, and over time their McDonalds machines have gotten more and more difficult for an untrained person to operate, despite the fact that they are intended to disassemble and clean the machine. But an argument could be made in Taylor's favor: if it were easy for non-techpriests to adjust their machines, it might make it possible for them to bypass the pasteurization feature or cause it to operate incorrectly, exposing customers to illness and franchises (and Taylor and McDonalds) to liability.
I don't know if I buy that argument myself, that's the kind of thinking that has made a legion of purposely hard-to-maintain products. But I figure I should put it out there, especially since Taylor is bound to argue it themselves eventually.
posted by JHarris at 9:33 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
This video showed up in my YouTube recommends today, a 30 minute video (coincidentally, by someone with a name very similar to mine) making basically the same point as the Wired article, although without the right-to-repair angle.
Interestingly, it starts out with a message to the reporter very similar to the one in that piece. Like, if the Kytch people sent out email to multiple tech writers hoping to weaponize public opinion in their battle against McDonalds.
There are a lot of ways that this situation can be regarded as unfair to franchisees, and Taylor has obviously profited greatly, and unfairly, by keeping the workings of their machines a secret, as car manufacturers have, and over time their McDonalds machines have gotten more and more difficult for an untrained person to operate, despite the fact that they are intended to disassemble and clean the machine. But an argument could be made in Taylor's favor: if it were easy for non-techpriests to adjust their machines, it might make it possible for them to bypass the pasteurization feature or cause it to operate incorrectly, exposing customers to illness and franchises (and Taylor and McDonalds) to liability.
I don't know if I buy that argument myself, that's the kind of thinking that has made a legion of purposely hard-to-maintain products. But I figure I should put it out there, especially since Taylor is bound to argue it themselves eventually.
posted by JHarris at 9:33 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
The issue is less the sensors that keep it from working when things might be broken, but the utter impossibility of figuring out what needs to be done to fix the problem even when it's something simple like the container being slightly too full. It seemed to me like some of the stuff locked away in the service manual really should be in the operator's manual at the very least.
If true, it's also very interesting how the machines Taylor sells to other fast food outlets seem not to have the same constant failures and yet don't seem to be getting people sick.
posted by wierdo at 11:53 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
If true, it's also very interesting how the machines Taylor sells to other fast food outlets seem not to have the same constant failures and yet don't seem to be getting people sick.
posted by wierdo at 11:53 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, it's because the McDonald's machines are over-engineered, perversely, to make them easier to maintain. They require less daily maintenance, and because they repasturize the dairy mix produce less wastage, but at the cost of expensive service calls if anything goes wrong, and because teenage employees often are called on to prepare and clean them, things go wrong often.
My last comment is the result of the realization that Taylor and McDonald's could have produced this situation without evil intent. You have a machine that often goes down? It's not a bad idea to try to forestall that with engineering. But because of food safety issues you don't want the user to monkey with them, so you hide the workings behind a properly cryptic UI, so only properly trained, responsible people can adjust them, because if it's left to the franchises a teenager will inevitably end up doing it at one of them. But hiring and maintaining a workforce of tech priests requires money. And because the machine also makes McFlurries, all McDonald's restaurants have to use it. At every step, they could plausibly say feature, not bug, but the system is still obviously bugged.
posted by JHarris at 6:09 AM on April 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
My last comment is the result of the realization that Taylor and McDonald's could have produced this situation without evil intent. You have a machine that often goes down? It's not a bad idea to try to forestall that with engineering. But because of food safety issues you don't want the user to monkey with them, so you hide the workings behind a properly cryptic UI, so only properly trained, responsible people can adjust them, because if it's left to the franchises a teenager will inevitably end up doing it at one of them. But hiring and maintaining a workforce of tech priests requires money. And because the machine also makes McFlurries, all McDonald's restaurants have to use it. At every step, they could plausibly say feature, not bug, but the system is still obviously bugged.
posted by JHarris at 6:09 AM on April 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 1:44 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]