If you had read the article you would see that a) they also take a cut of revenue, and b) if no one is willing to franchisee (e.g. fund) a restaurant what happe

If you had read the article you would see that a) they also take a cut of revenue, and b) if no one is willing to franchisee (e.g. fund) a restaurant what happens to it? The product line is the value McDonalds provides to it's customers (the franchisees) if that value decreases then the money it gets paid by it's franchisees in aggregate decreases.