The real problem is that McDonalds corporate forces franchisees to buy a crappy version of the machine that generates huge income for Taylor, and (most likely) for McD corporate via kickbacks, from weekly service calls. Taylor makes almost-identical machines for other joints that work fine, but franchisees are contractually obligated to buy the crappy one, and to have it "fixed" all the damn time by Taylor techs. It is a racket.
I don't know what would happen if a franchisee bought one of each and put the crappy one in a closet. Probably corporate would notice the lack of kickback revenue and force the issue somehow.
Really, attorneys general should be investigating McD corporate for anti-competitive behavior, and getting restraining orders against corporate taking the kickbacks. (Maybe even prosecute it?) Somehow, enforcement of anti-trust law has been neutered so that it takes extraordinary measures to get even the most basic sort of action against abuse. Racketeering law might be more effective.
Without the kickbacks, corporate will have no incentive to force franchisees to spend thousands of dollars every week on unnecessary "service" work. But corporate should be forced to pay all the franchisees' accumulated service costs that exceed the norm for similar machines. With interest.
Of course, without the machines failing all the time, Kytch won't have a market. So, they actually want McD to keep getting the kickbacks for repairs on the crappy machines, and continue forcing franchisees to depend on them, and just leave Kytch to collect their own piece of the action. None of Taylor's, Kytch's, or corporates' hands are especially clean, but Kytch is making things uncomfortable for entrenched racketeers, so we like to cheer them on.
> The real problem is that McDonalds corporate forces franchisees to buy a crappy version of the machine that generates huge income for Taylor
Wendys also uses the same vendor with a better machine, which is where this starts to look malicious rather than incompetent. The broken machine is one specifically made for McDonalds.
In general, this is anti-consumer in two different ways - you don't give me ice-cream with the apple pie and whenever it breaks, you throw away a couple of gallons of the mixture to be safe.
There was a deep-dive into this from Johnny Harris[1], which dug through the manuals for the machine, sales projections from Taylor and why McD franchisees are easier marks for this than others (the revenue volume is huge).
A Franchisor’s job is to mandate things exactly like this. A McFlurry tastes the same everywhere because it’s the same ingredients prepared the same way on the same machine. There may be some issue, and there may even be fraud as you seem confident of, but this isn’t an anti-trust issue. The fast food biz is incredibly competitive, and franchisees have a number of other options.
I'm not opposed to regulating the relationship between franchiser and franchisee, but anti trust does not strike me as a good fit.
The market here seems to be something like 'franchise rights to a fast service food brand'. McDonalds is far from the only company offering such a thing.
Let's talk about these quotes from the article/Taylor COO:
> According to the court document, Taylor's COO admits that it sought to obtain a Kytch device "in order to evaluate and assess its potential technology-related impacts upon our Soft Serve Machine—such as whether the radio frequency of the Kytch device would interfere with our software signal, or whether the Kytch device would drain the power source of our software and/or cause it malfunction," but denied that Taylor mined it for trade secrets or even "need such information."
If your software is running on some micro, then another device being powered from the same supply may cause low-power problems on the micro. It seems fair to want to assess anything being connected to your hardware to see if it would cause a problem with your software.
Does anyone see the blatant hypocrisy in this case?
"We reverse engineered your product and made something to help maintain it. You better not so much as look at our product. We have a right to repair, but you don't."
I agree that it does feel a bit paradoxical, but reversing a product for repair purposes verses reversing it for duplication are treated fundamentally differently by reasonable people. One is "right to repair" the other is "counterfeiting" or violating patents. To your statement,
"We have a right to repair, but you don't" -- this clearly is not what is intended by Taylor, to repair these Kytch diagnostic tools. If that were the case, I think that would carry.
IANAL but I believe reverse engineering for duplication is legal. You can't violate a patent, but trade secrets are called "secrets" because once they are out they are out. You protect secrets with NDAs so they don't get out. You're supposed to protect things that the public will see with patents if you want to protect them.
The claim is that the company makes more money from service than from the sale of the device. By having a device that makes servicing cheaper, they lose money, so they want to look at this device, update the machines to prevent this device from working, and prevent their right of repair.
I am for sure pro-Kytch in this, but seems a little backwards that Kytch has obviously acquired Taylor machines to build there devices, but now Taylor has to turnover all there Kytch devices.
I think it's alleged that Taylor acquired Kytch's devices them under the table whereas Kytch acquired them outright and in a way Taylor isn't disputing.
I'm in agreement, but what is painfully unsaid throughout the article are the why.
It seems pretty apparent to me that Taylor is getting their hands on the Kytch device for the purpose of developing countermeasures to Kytch devices functioning at all.
How is this a win for right to repair? It sounds like the company making the original equipment has been barred from obtaining the modification device, so they can't even verify that it's safe. Is this what we want? If I make a medical x-ray machine, and someone makes a device that modifies it, is barring me from obtaining said device to check it's safety a win for right to repair? It just sounds like the company making the modification is latching on to the right to repair movement to win their case.
Readit News
I don't know what would happen if a franchisee bought one of each and put the crappy one in a closet. Probably corporate would notice the lack of kickback revenue and force the issue somehow.
Really, attorneys general should be investigating McD corporate for anti-competitive behavior, and getting restraining orders against corporate taking the kickbacks. (Maybe even prosecute it?) Somehow, enforcement of anti-trust law has been neutered so that it takes extraordinary measures to get even the most basic sort of action against abuse. Racketeering law might be more effective.
Without the kickbacks, corporate will have no incentive to force franchisees to spend thousands of dollars every week on unnecessary "service" work. But corporate should be forced to pay all the franchisees' accumulated service costs that exceed the norm for similar machines. With interest.
Of course, without the machines failing all the time, Kytch won't have a market. So, they actually want McD to keep getting the kickbacks for repairs on the crappy machines, and continue forcing franchisees to depend on them, and just leave Kytch to collect their own piece of the action. None of Taylor's, Kytch's, or corporates' hands are especially clean, but Kytch is making things uncomfortable for entrenched racketeers, so we like to cheer them on.
Wendys also uses the same vendor with a better machine, which is where this starts to look malicious rather than incompetent. The broken machine is one specifically made for McDonalds.
In general, this is anti-consumer in two different ways - you don't give me ice-cream with the apple pie and whenever it breaks, you throw away a couple of gallons of the mixture to be safe.
There was a deep-dive into this from Johnny Harris[1], which dug through the manuals for the machine, sales projections from Taylor and why McD franchisees are easier marks for this than others (the revenue volume is huge).
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
The market here seems to be something like 'franchise rights to a fast service food brand'. McDonalds is far from the only company offering such a thing.
> According to the court document, Taylor's COO admits that it sought to obtain a Kytch device "in order to evaluate and assess its potential technology-related impacts upon our Soft Serve Machine—such as whether the radio frequency of the Kytch device would interfere with our software signal, or whether the Kytch device would drain the power source of our software and/or cause it malfunction," but denied that Taylor mined it for trade secrets or even "need such information."
Drain the power source of their software..?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
"We reverse engineered your product and made something to help maintain it. You better not so much as look at our product. We have a right to repair, but you don't."
What about reverse engineering for curiosity or even posterity repair?
Also how is intent of reverse engineering determined?
Dead Comment
I’m all on the side of right to repair but surely reverse engineering ought to be permissible for all sides?
It seems pretty apparent to me that Taylor is getting their hands on the Kytch device for the purpose of developing countermeasures to Kytch devices functioning at all.