If McDonald's want's to error on the side of caution, isn't that their prerogative?

Problem is McDonald's isn't paying for all the unnecessary service calls, it is the restaurant owner that have to buy the McDonald's mandated machines that end up paying. So you have McDonald's which has no incentive to change things, Taylor which profits from the situation since their devices are mandated and the restaurant owners who have to foot the bill for hundreds of pointless service calls.

But what does McDonald's gain from the PR backlash? Is there some perpetual contract between McDonald's and Taylor, and they just screwed up by buying a worse model? You'd think that the corporate overlords would perfer the machine to be working so they make money from the sales...

Nothing. But the alternative isn't great either.

Its more costly and vastly more negative from a PR perspective, for McDonalds to force franchisees to change ice cream machinery vendors.

Same thing for Taylor upgrading their own machines - with the added cost that they don't have any goodwill to start.

There's an added incentive here that McD wants the legal shield up at all times - they are incentivized to keep machine error rate very low, to the cost of $$ in sales lost.

Consumers greatly benefit from it - we get worse availability of ice cream when we walk in, and we are paying slightly more in menu prices, but the risk of getting poisoned from eating ice cream at McD ends up extremely low.

> You'd think that the corporate overlords would prefer the machine to be working so they make money from the sales...

And that's where the intrigue and accusations of foul play are coming in. It seems like McD's has mandated this model of Machine and Taylor agreed to make it worse (they supply better machines without these issues to other fast food chains). Taylor profits from the service calls and I'd bet some McD's exec are getting kickbacks to keep it that way (by mandating a worse machine that makes franchise owners less money). The Kytch device came along and upset that status quo.

Sure, it's their prerrogative to continue squeezing their franchisees as much as they can and make their work as hard as they can.

If I wanted to lose money there are less painful ways than being a McD franchisee.

McD's actual business is on real estate/franchise fees. The food business is secondary and is a justification for the first. Guess which part is risky and complicated?

Abusive monopolistic behavior if left unchecked can lead to great evil. This was recognized a long time ago and led to anti monopoly legislation and enforcement. Just think what would have happened to the internet if AT&T‘s stranglehold over the connection of equipment to telephone lines had continued.

Strangling is not a prerogative of the strongest.