Kytch v. McDonald's

[John Thomas8]

Or, why greed is killing everything:

[MN-Skeptic]

I knew I remembered this story -

MarketWatch - March 2, 2017 -

McDonald’s gets new ice-cream machines after customers complain

McDonald’s Corp. is getting new ice cream machines after customers complained the old ones were offline too often.

McDonald’s US:MCD says the new machines have fewer parts and are easier to maintain. A spokeswoman for the fast-food giant said the machines will be rolled out in restaurants in the U.S. and Europe.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that customers who ordered McFlurry ice cream treats and soft-serve cones in the evening were often turned away because the machine’s weren’t operational. The precise reasons weren’t clear and led many customers to offer up conspiracy theories.

Some former McDonald’s workers said it took so long to disassemble and clean the machines that they often began preparing for the nightly four-hour automatic disinfection cycle before the restaurant closed. Others said the machines frequently broke down. McDonald’s says the new machines, already in use in some foreign markets, require less downtime to clean and dispense more flavors.

[John Thomas8]

Still broken: 28 Apr 21

https://mcbroken.com/

[John Thomas8]

Kytch makes a little gadget that goes into the Taylor ice cream machines located at every McD's that has ice cream. The gadget allows for better reliability of the machines and far less down time.

[raison de arizona]

Saw that device on the telly, seems like years ago, but my sense of time is all whacked out. Super cool.

[John Thomas8]

The problem with the machines is so bad somebody made a real-time tracker:

https://mcbroken.com/

[raison de arizona]

The problem with the machines is so bad somebody made a real-time tracker:

https://mcbroken.com/

Jack in the Box sponsors that, how clever!

[MN-Skeptic]

We had a previous thread on McDonald's ice cream machines -

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525

[John Thomas8]

We had a previous thread on McDonald's ice cream machines -

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525

Um, ok? Are we still carrying on about multiple threads?

[Jim]

We had a previous thread on McDonald's ice cream machines -

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525

Yeah, but you're never quite sure if they made it past the reboot.

[MN-Skeptic]

We had a previous thread on McDonald's ice cream machines -

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525

Yeah, but you're never quite sure if they made it past the reboot.

I could find it because I remember commenting once about McDonald's issues. I wasn't sure if it was in this Fogbow or in the previous existence.

[raison de arizona]

Besides, this thread is about a specific lawsuit.

[Luke]

Not sure where to post this but fun to see it's of interest here. There's a McD franchise owner called McD Truth https://twitter.com/McD_Truth & we've been talking about this for a while. Didn't know if there was interest to post it here.





Read though the Complaint over the weekend, have been following this since the Wired articles.

https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked ... -cold-war/
https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonalds-i ... al-emails/
https://www.wired.com/story/kytch-ice-c ... 0-million/

This Kytch device is being attached to food (ice cream) machines that are made by Taylor. $MCD franchisees buy them and the basic issue is that Kytch claims their device is superior to Taylor's in diagnosing and repairing them. But the fact remains they are Taylor's responsibility, and franchisees have requirements with McDonald's. So while the "right-to-repair" changes have some merit, there are agreements that supercede that between $MCD and franchisees. Franchisees can also buy Carpigiani machines (though there are some issues getting getting those). Taylor's been working with $MCD since 1956, and have 13,000 of these machines in $MCD restaurants worldwide.

Reading over the complaint, McD Truth asked and will post this but Twitter has been messed up and not loading photos and stuff:

As promised, here are a few notes about the Kytch vs. McDonald's Complaint having reviewed it. Easier to post in an image. Using litigation as a business model is always a horrible idea, & this is highly unlikely to prevail. If you have questions, lmk or DM me.

Using litigation as a business model is always a horrible idea. This is a Hail Mary complaint; they make tons of assumptions ("repair racket") that $MCD will drive holes though. They admit they never talked with $MCD. Brian Farnan (son of former US District Judge Joseph) signed the complaint, but Clare Locke is Of Counsel (Dominion is their client) so this is an expensive case. Clare Locke has been Kytch's parent company's counsel. $MCD can drag this out forever. Taylor can file an infringement/reverse engineering suit on their intellectual property. Expert witness depos galore.

Kytch may have more of an NDA case against Tyler Gamble but it's peanuts (& not $MCD/Taylor's problem). $MCD & Taylor have every right to control what's in their equipment. The Complaint repeats the safety notice at least 5 times but that's internal, right? They keep calling it an "advertisement". And Kytch neglects to mention the notice says "potential". This is getting a lot of press, but reading through it, I'd be surprised if Kytch prevailed. And if their business was "destroyed", who is funding this litigation?


They admit no contact from $MCD

MCD No Contact Kytch.JPG (47.62 KiB) Viewed 1519 times

Clearly they were reverse engineering which opens them up to claims.

Kytch Reverse Engineering.JPG (67.1 KiB) Viewed 1519 times

[Foggy]

OK, I looked at other thread, and it looks like this Kytch device solved the problem of the borken ice cream machines that is the subject of the other thread, amirite? So it sort of makes sense to merge them into one thread.

I kind of consider threads, not by the number of them related to any particular area of discussion, but whether it makes sense to have a separate topic or not. Some threads are essentially duplicates, and I will merge them. Some threads suddenly have a new tangent that I think is so important I will start a new thread and move some posts into it. Some threads get moved to different forums. I try to do some actual thinking when I'm working on keeping the forum organization rational and compartmentalized.

I think I use good judgment in this important area, but if anyone has a complaint, let me know at imnotlistening@gmail.com, and remember that unlike Donald Trump I really was elected to a lifetime term as your dick tater with 100% of the vote (only imaginary cartoon roosters were allowed to vote, of course). You know that I listen to input, even after the fact. But sometimes a decision must be made, and ...

Be best. I do the best I can.

But I'm not pulling the trigger on this one until I get confirmation: did the Kytch device fix the problem with the broken ice-cream machines in the other thread, and that's the basis for the lawsuit?

'Cuz if so, they shall become unified.

[Estiveo]

Business Insider article about it.

It seems to boil down to Kytch saying they can fix the ice cream machines & Micky D telling franchisees that it's better to have a non-functional boat anchor with a worthless warranty, than a functional ice-cream machine with a voided warranty. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.busine ... 22-3%3famp

[keith]

I try to do some actual thinking when I'm working on keeping the forum organization rational and compartmentalized.

And always remember that the whole world appreciates you for it.

[Luke]

The other topic, "Bright Shiny Capitalism", seems like it could be for other things too also, but there are only 3 posts there. As it happens, there's also Kytch v Taylor... they were fishing in that discovery for material to use in this case. But if it's cool with John, who created them both, seems cool to merge. Might want to make it "Kytch v McDonalds (and others)". As mentioned above, it's interesting that Clare Locke, the Dominion lawyers, are also the lawyers for Kytch's parent company (who makes frozen yogurt machines called Frobot. https://kytch.com/frobot

Fogbow members have been demanding a Frobot machine in the cafeteria here for years but does management listen? Please install before Mike Lindell sues it!

Frobot.jpg (7.45 KiB) Viewed 1397 times

[John Thomas8]

'Cuz if so, they shall become unified.

To be honest, I thought that thread was lost in The Event, so I just started another one without looking.

Merge them, I won't complain. I was tickled somebody explained it like I'm not a lawyer.

And yes, the Kytch device increases machine availability by factors that dent the hell out of Taylor's bottom line generated by ineffective but expensive "repair" efforts. The software on them is designed to cause repair problems.

(it did remind me to go back and document what music I've posted so I can avoid duplicates, only one so far).

[northland10]

Um, I am a bit confused as to how Kytch seems to think they have the right to demand McDonald's approve their product for the machines. Kytch complains about interfering with the contracts with their customers but their model appears to be an attempt to interfere with McDonald's contracts with their franchisees. It seems to me that the franchisees are the ones who would have a case as McDonald's is hurter their business though I would not be surprised if McDonald's probably has a bunch of clauses which would, at best, force anything to arbitration.

Taylor is a vendor for McDonald's and if they want to make stupid business decisions in that relationship, it hardly seems that this provides a course of action for a vendor who does not have a contract with McDonald's.

[keith]

I could be off base here, but as I understand it, McDonalds Corporate has a contract with Taylors that sends poorly performing machines to the Franchisees with possibly bad maintenance monitor circuit that may, or may not be specifically designed to produce problems and therefore inflated service revenue to Taylors).

Kytch has a 3rd Party add-on (replacement maintenance monitor circuit?) that actually works to monitor issues and drastically reduces maintenance costs saving the Franchisees money. Franchisees WANT to install the Kytch device, but MickyD's Corporate won't let them. (They're not in the hamburger business, they're in the property business - no maybe its the machine leasing and repair business).

Of course the Kytch device, when installed will negate the warrantee, (time travel begins here->) just like if you rip the cam shaft out of your brand new GTO and replace it with a full race cam. The franchisees know that, but they'd rather have a functioning machine they can use to sell product than have an unusable lump of stainless steel sitting in the middle of their service area.

[Luke]

Yes, Northland. McD Truth is very open to discussing anything Mickey D's, he's a cool guy. Basically, Kytch is saying Taylor couldn't get their act together fast enough to fix the problem (and wanted to keep the repair money coming) so they sabotaged Kytch. It's a long, tortured way to look at it. Kytch wasn't even installing these gadgets until 2019, Taylor's been with McDonald's since the 1950s. Take a look at McD Truth, he's been discussing it from the franchisee's perspective for a while.

[John Thomas8]

I vaguely recall when I posted the first thread that I spent 10-15 hours looking into how the machines work, how the repairs are effected and what the Kytch thingy did and drew on my 30+ years in IT experience (primarily software development and lifecycle) and concluded that Taylor's actively sabotages the machines to generate repair revenue. Nobody writes software that behaves that badly without intent.

Does Kytch have a case? Probably not, given the information provided here. Do the franchise owners have a case? IANAL but it would seem to me that they would if they got together and pushed it.

And it's mostly a closed loop system, as in McDs buys solely (or mostly) Taylor's machines and requires franchisees to solely use Taylor's machines and Taylor's is the only "valid" repair vendor. Which leads to 2 obnoxious conditions: more and unwarranted costs to the franchisees and consumers being denied products.

It all kinda stinks.

[Luke]

Franchisees can now buy a different machine from another vendor, but McD Truth was saying it's an Italian company and getting parts replaced is a hassle. If interested, let me know and I'll find the discussion we had about it. It's always planned that Taylor was bringing out something called "Open Kitchen" with more robotics, but overall things are really slow. McD Truth has been aggrieved that the robot burger flipper is so behind, White Castle has put them in far faster and is now bringing out a robot for the fry stations. McD has even been behind on AI ordering which (IIRC) they owned a part of the business making them and then sold that business. Robotics are going to be everywhere in those kitchens in the next 10 years, people will work with guests and front of house but so many of those back of house operations can easily be automated. Folks don't like doing those jobs much anyway.

[John Thomas8]

I'm gonna sound like a Luddite, but automating people out of jobs doesn't seem....sensible? Ya, they're not fun, nor do they pay well. But they have a at least semi-useful feature: they pay humans money.

Yes, buggy makers were replaced by Ford's production lines, but there were never that many buggy makers to begin with really. Water-powered looms operated in part by 8 year olds were replaced with steam/electric power looms. Laser cutters are replacing metal fabricators. Store clerks in brick-and-mortar stores are getting run over by the likes of Amazon et. al. All Cheetos are produced by 10 people.

Are we going to keep low-simmer wars going to keep unemployment down? People gotta eat.

[Luke]

McD Truth read over the notes y'all saw first and posted about it. Twitter wasn't letting images post last night.

McD Truth @McD_Truth·1m

I hate to even give this topic any credibility but this is the best summary yet of Kytch’s lawsuit against $McD:

“Using litigation as a business model is always a horrible idea, & this is highly unlikely to prevail

”Quote Tweet OrlyLicious @Orly_licious · 29m
Replying to @McD_TruthAs promised, here are a few notes about the Kytch vs. McDonald's Complaint having reviewed it. Easier to post in an image. Using litigation as a business model is always a horrible idea, & this is highly unlikely to prevail. If you have questions, lmk or DM me.