In the early morning of September 3, 2021, Beijing time, the Chinese men's football team lost 3-0 to Australia. As the Japanese team lost unexpectedly to Oman, the unsurprising result of the Chinese men's football team has also been complained by many netizens on the domestic network as a "stable hip-pulling".

However, what Geng Zhige wants to talk about today is not Chinese football, but something that is more "stable" in terms of "hip pulling", that is, all over the United States.McDonald'sThe ice cream machine in the restaurant.

Even because of the high frequency, wide range and unsolved failure of these ice cream machines, even the US government could not stand it and recently launched an investigation into the matter.

(however, before we begin to tell this American story, Geng Zhige has to make it clear that what we are talking about here is only aimed at McDonald's Corp of the United States, not McDonald's Corp in China.)

When it comes to McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine, the American people are unable to complain. Because whenever they go to McDonald's Corp restaurant to order an ice cream, the clerks often tell them that the machine is broken.

Some American IT engineers even created a website called "McDonald's Corp is broken" (McBroken.com), updating which ice cream machines in McDonald's Corp restaurants in the United States are broken-the proportion is surprising. In some places, more than 30% of the ice cream machines in McDonald's Corp restaurants are broken.

What is even more exaggerated is that this situation is unique to McDonald's Corp restaurants in the United States, which is rare in other American fast food restaurants, and this phenomenon has been going on for many years and has not been improved. As a result, "McDonald's Corp's Ice Cream Machine" has not only become a popular cultural symbol of "hip pulling" in American popular culture, but also many colleagues in the fast food industry often laugh at McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine.

Here are some memes that Americans tease about "McDonald's Corp Ice Cream Machine":

I walked into area 51 of American aliens and found that McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine was working.

I solemnly swear that I will forget to give you straws and repair ice cream machines.

McDonald's Corp ice cream machine that can work? I haven't heard of it for years. )

McDonald's Corp: sorry, the ice cream machine is broken. Me: it's all right. I'm used to it. I just thought I wouldn't be able to catch up with the machine for once. )

But in the past two days, the US government seems to have finally noticed the public's dissatisfaction and began to investigate McDonald's Corp's frequently malfunctioning ice cream machines. The incident immediately attracted strong attention from the American public, and the topic quickly rushed to social media.

However, according to the reports of the Wall Street Journal, the CNBC News Network and the Boston Globe, it is not the US food safety agency that is responsible for investigating the matter, but the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is responsible for antitrust and consumer protection.

So the question is, why is an antitrust government agency investigating McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine?

Because, through the investigation, some American reporters found that the ice cream machine in McDonald's Corp's restaurant could "pull the hip steadily" for several years because of the serious monopoly behavior behind it.

For example, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal pointed out in their reports on the matter that the ice cream machines used by McDonald's Corp restaurants in the United States were made by a veteran American ice cream maker named TAYLOR.

However, the operation of this ice cream machine is too tedious, and it is difficult to repair after a failure, resulting in many McDonald's Corp franchise store owners and clerks (note: McDonald's Corp is mainly a franchise mode in the United States) unable to solve the machine problem, can only pay expensive repairs out of his own pocket, let TAYLOR maintenance personnel to repair. But neither McDonald's Corp nor TAYLOR has made any improvement to this situation.

An American journalist named Johnny Harris produced a more detailed video report in April about McDonald's Corp and TAYLOR's "chain of interests" in ice cream machines.

According to his research, TAYLOR provided McDonald's Corp restaurants in the United States with an ice cream machine specially made by the two companies for McDonald's Corp's restaurant, model C602. McDonald's Corp also asked all its franchisees to use only this ice cream machine, otherwise it would be a breach of contract.

This explains why only McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine has a problem, while ice cream machines used by other fast food brands do not-even the latter will buy other ice cream machines made by TAYLOR.

But the use and operation flow of this machine is extremely tedious and even obscure. In particular, after using the machine for a period of time, the operator will be required to carry out a 4-hour high-temperature disinfection operation, otherwise it will not be able to use.

However, this high-temperature disinfection operation will often "fail" for a variety of reasons, but the machine will not tell you what went wrong, but will only pop up a series of dizzying error codes. As a result, the franchise owner of McDonald's Corp, who was unable to solve this problem and was eager to serve customers, had no choice but to pay for door-to-door repairs by TAYLOR's maintenance personnel, even if these failures were actually caused by a small problem.

This is the main reason why McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine always breaks down. Some stores sometimes even let these maintenance personnel come to the door 4-5 times a week.

But Harris found that the TAYLOR maintenance staff were extremely expensive, charging $144 for the first 30 minutes and an extra $315 (2034 yuan) for every 15 minutes. TAYLOR also revealed in a document that annual revenue from services such as machine maintenance alone accounts for as much as 25% of the company's annual revenue.

Not only that, Harris also found that the machine operation manual provided by TAYLOR to McDonald's Corp, which is different from the operation manual for the company's own maintenance personnel, conceals some machine operation skills and techniques.

At this point, a chain of monopoly interests formed by McDonald's Corp and TAYLOR of the United States is already quite clear. Through the overlord clause in the joining contract, McDonald's Corp forced the franchisee to use only the ice cream machine made by TAYLOR for McDonald's Corp. TAYLOR, which monopolizes McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine business, has no intention to improve their poor products, even if franchisees and consumers are complaining.

But Harris also found another problem in his investigation: a third-party technology company in the United States has developed software that can solve the obscure operation problems of the ice cream machine. It can tell users quite intuitively what went wrong with the machine during the most deadly high-temperature disinfection process and how to deal with it. The software was immediately favored by many McDonald's Corp franchise store owners.

But McDonald's Corp and TAYLOR warned franchisees not to use the software developed by the third-party technology company, saying it had "serious security risks" and would constitute a breach of contract. The two companies also said they would soon provide safer solutions.

But Harris found that the solution that McDonald's Corp TAYLOR was going to propose was not only inferior to that of that third-party company, but also that the company that provided the solution to the two monopolies also belonged to the same group as TAYLOR-in other words, McDonald's Corp and TAYLOR wanted to block the better solution of that third-party company. It is probably to allow "our own people" to monopolize the business of patching ice cream machines, even if the latter plan is also bad.

And this is probably because the US Federal Trade Commission, which is in charge of antitrust and consumer protection business, will now come forward to investigate the cause of McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine problem.

At the same time, this incident also reveals two truths: first, monopoly will not only hinder progress, but also damage the whole industry and consumers, which is why anti-monopoly has become a major concern of many countries, including our country. Secondly, behind those "stable hip-pulling", there are often some factors that make "hip-pulling" can not be changed all the time. On McDonald's Corp's ice cream machine in the United States, this problem is the monopoly and overlord clause of McDonald's Corp and TAYLOR. As for our Chinese football, I'm afraid the reason is even more complicated.