[lupusreal]

It sure seems like whenever a corporation grows old, large or expansive enough, it will inevitably morph into an spy agency. Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business wants to spy on people.

Earlier this week I was in a regional gas station getting lunch, they've got maybe 30 or so locations scattered around this part of the state, and watched them tell an old man that he couldn't get a loyalty card from them anymore because they only do apps now. "But I don't have a cellphone" - "Uhhh... You can also do it online?"

[adolph]

> a burger flipping business wants to spy on people

"It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17."

  For example, the Manna software in each store knew about employee performance 
  in microscopic detail — how often the employee was on time or early, how 
  quickly the employee did tasks, how quickly the employee answered the phone 
  and responded to email, how the customers rated the employee and so on. When 
  an employee left a store and tried to get a new job somewhere else, any other 
  Manna system could request the employee’s performance record. If an employee 
  had “issues” — late, slow, disorganized, unkempt — it became nearly 
  impossible for that employee to get another job. 

https://marshallbrain.com/manna2

[baggachipz]

> Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business

Technically, McDonald's is a real estate company[1] who wants to spy on people, but that doesn't make it any less egregious.

[1] https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...

[xg15]

Isn't that technically true for all franchises?

If every restaurant is its own small/medium business and the corporate franchisor only ever interacts with the franchisees and never with the end customers, then all the direct revenue for the franchisor will be from services or licenses provided to the franchisees, not from directly selling burgers. But the franchisees are still much more dependent on the franchisor than they would be in a normal B2B relationship. And many of those "service costs" can be freely set by the franchisor and have the purpose of channeling revenue back from the restaurants - revenue that would not exist if no burgers were sold.

[dreamcompiler]

No.

The specific point here is that the McDonald's Corporation is often the landlord of its franchisees. Of course most franchisees of any franchisor are required to buy supplies etc from the franchisor, but McDonald's is famous for also charging them rent.

[supportengineer]

McDonalds is a real estate business. I recommend you check out the 2016 movie "The Founder" which is the story of Ray Kroc. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder

[the_sleaze_]

> McDonalds is a real estate business.

In the same way that American Airlines is a credit card company. How much rent will they receive if they stopped selling burgers?

> The Founder"

Good movie but McDonalds is a long long way away from scrappy, morally-bankrupt Ray Kroc's time. I imagine using pink slime to make the nuggets he sold to kids would be right in his wheelhouse though.

[dreamcompiler]

American Airlines is more a credit card company than McDonalds is a real estate company. If McDonald's stopped collecting rent from its franchisees, there would probably be layoffs at corporate but the general public would still be able to buy Big Macs.

If American Airlines' credit card revenues dried up they wouldn't be able to pay their fuel bills and the company would be gone the next day.

[walkabout]

> In the same way that American Airlines is a credit card company.

I thought the "they're not what you think" deal with airlines is that they're actually futures trading companies that happen to own and operate some aircraft?

[jvanderbot]

While very interesting and a great movie, maybe can you explain how it's pertinent to this conversation?

[supportengineer]

>> "Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business"

[jvanderbot]

> ostensibly

probably implied they knew.

[lupusreal]

Ostensibly ;)

But yes, good movie too.