We don't have any evidence to support this claim though.

McDonald's appears to sell a lot more soft serve (by volume) than any other fast food chain. People go there specifically for McFlurries and others, and then leave disappointed when the machine is not working. Few, if any, go to Burger King or Arby's only for a soft serve product.

So, the issue appears more visible. But that's not evidence that McDonald's machines are less reliable. It could simply be they're the most used.

The Wendy's Frosty though?

McDonald's is nearly 6 times larger than Wendy's by number of stores, and double the revenue, with more than half of that revenue coming from franchise fees[1], if I'm reading this correctly.

[1] https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/corp/nfl/p...

To be quite frank, McDonalds seems to hire a lower grade of worker than the rest, or at least their workers perform worse than the rest because they're paid poorly and overworked, or for some other reason...

Point is, they can't even get "no pickles" right.

I'll take anything over the cheese quesadilla, except they forgot the cheese, that I got at a new Chipotle location.

You can't make this generalization for a franchise business.

McDonalds is a franchise, so "McDonalds" doesn't hire the workers. Each independent franchise owner does. There are some franchise owners who own numerous locations across an area, so sometimes the same party is to blame for quality and hiring practices. For sure some hire really bottom of the barrel, but I've been to some where the workers were top notch. I remember one lady that was so smart, helpful, and cheerful that I wanted to hire and train her! It all depends on the individual franchise owner's philosophy/approach.

That's why a lot of fast food chains don't offer soft serve. At McDonald's scale, their peers that do would be KFC (only some locations?), Burger King, and Wendy's.

For reference, here's a first person report from one of the previous times this was brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938854

Burger King appears to also use Taylor equipment, although not the combo 2-in-1, do-it-all model that McDonald's does.

Wendy's uses a custom machine built by Kappus for their Frosties. [0] [1]

[0] History https://www.wendys.com/blog/history-of-frosty

[1] How It's Made https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oorX3mHgHQs&t=95s

Somehow Dairy Queen is able to serve ice cream ok

Then it DQ must be using alien technology. Just as in the UFO debate, there is no other possible explanation, therefore it must be aliens.

And I would hope that Dairy Queen, a company founded in 1940 to sell soft-serve ice cream (original formula 1938), is better at selling soft-serve ice cream than McDonald's.

Also, they're a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway since 1998.

There is a detailed video about it. Ultimately, conclusion seems like it is collusion between the two corporates to get profit at the expense of franchise owners

The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken by Johnny Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4