What baffles me about this whole situation is McDonald's (corporate) role in perpetuating it. It doesn't make sense as a way to squeeze money from the franchises, because the extracted rents¹ don't go to corporate; it goes to Taylor. It's a loss to the franchisee, and no benefit to McDonald's central.
This smells of graft. Someone at McDonald's corporate is getting paid off illicitly.
¹ In the political-economy sense of "rent", not the one that means "lease payment".
There's already a link to the vid talking about the utter bullshit and corruption surrounding the McD's ice cream machines posted in this thread, but here's a resource I haven't seen posted yet: an online tracker to find out if your local McD's ice cream machine is working or broken right now.
The Superior Court of Alameda County is charging roughly $1 per page to get legal filings. To download the entirety of the court proceedings to date, the court wants $2,999.
Alright, fuck it! Lets build our own soft serve ice cream machines... with blackjack and hookers.
As a result of these shenanigans by Taylor and on their behalf McDonald's itself I haven't considered McDonald's a viable place to go for any kind of ice cream or ice cream-adjacent thing for many years, whereas this was once not the case. I know I'm not the only one either.
Unrelated to the topic but has anyone else noticed the quality of the soft serve has gone down dramatically in the last several years. I got a ice cream cone and it didn't even taste good. I was looking at their advert for a Mcflurry and it looked all ice crystally and not good at all. If they can't even make the picture look good that is saying something.
Y'all are really busting out the pitchforks for this shit? You're gonna demand change at McDonald's?
Have you considered not eating there? You know that food is terrible for you, right? Crazy amounts of salt, sugar, and garbage meat processed in weird preservatives. You'd be healthier, and there's no better way to hurt a corporation than to stop giving them your money.
Kind of seems a bit pointless what they're campaigning for in this regard. A DMCA exemption wouldn't allow franchise owners to use an alternative repair company, as no doubt their franchise contract specifies who they can use.
I mean its not real ice cream anyway its some horrible mad science concoction which probably causes cancer so the scam McDonalds and the manufactured are pulling here is likely doing the public a favor.