As if they weren’t the ones setting the price so high. They’re actually paying attention because people are finally starting to not pay them.
This kind of thing always seems to have a huge delay. Eventually enough people figure it out to make a dent, but it’s going to take 18 months to hit that point.
Oh, and every fast food place expects you to use their app, or they’ll charge you 50% more. And you have to do their dance of what to order and which deal applies this week.
But the hedge fund managers sent them letters saying their job is to gouge customers explicitly looking for inexpensive meals because wE NeEd MOAAAAAAR!
If they‘re already losing costumers (we‘re talking about McD costumers here. People who have been loyally buying their junk for their entire life) then it‘s already too late. People who already turned their back on a product that‘s mainly driven by brand power will not return if you just reduce prices a little again. That‘s because it took a lot more crap for them to leave than they‘re willing to come back for once they‘re gone. If McD is really openly considering to lower prices, they‘re in deep trouble.
In what hell is a big Mac meal $18.
I bought a triple quarter pounder meal + happy meal for $17 2 days ago.
You say that like $17 is a reasonable price to pay for 2 preprocessed garbage burgers, 2 little cardboard cups of fries, and 2 cups of sugar water.
Yes. But I completely disagree with your description of the food. You people have been programmed to believe the food is much worse than it is. Almost all of my burgers come out fresh. I’m not sure what you mean preprocessed. It’s pure old regular ground beef salt and pepper. The fries are certainly a step down from beef tallow days but magnitudes better than the frozen oven fries or doing a double fry at home.
I’m more than happy to trade on occasion. It’s a lovely little treat filled with nostalgia.
I’ve never seen such a distinct projection as your comment which starts off as “you people have been programmed (against)” and you ending with you own “nostalgia” towards the same product.
You admit you’ve been programmed to have a pleasant feeling when consuming this product and yet cannot rather than accept that others do not have this programming, jump past this obvious state and accuse others of having been programmed against your beloved product experience.
Very intriguing and illustrative example on the effects of marketing to mould the human mind and trigger its defenses.
It can absolutely be both. You can enjoy the nostalgia while making objective observations. I already posted my observation of lower quality fries, but you have seemed to ignore it and tried to make it a binary thing.
Because you are programmed to hate them and can’t make an objective decision.
Have you considered you’re programmed to think everyone but you is programmed?
You seem to have no problem expressing your knowledge on the exact motivations behind other’s decisions. This is a signal that does not favor you having high emotional intelligence.
That you cannot tell the difference between my theory and your certainty is another such signal.
How much profit is McDonald’s Corp making in the US? In Germany (Munich in particular, which usuay is the most expensive city for everything) a big Mac meal is around 9,79€ (although there’s always a coupon in the app for some free nuggets or something). The workers are paid decently, they have full health insurance (including dental, eyes, etc, because everybody gets those), unlimited sick days and a minimum of 24 vacation days.
The fuck you guys are doing over there?
McDonald’s didn’t make profit on the food. They make money on the land value and franchise fees. I’m more saying I completely disagree with you but I think there is a more accurate way to frame where money is going. McDonald’s healthcare is far better than what you’ll get working at smaller food service business.
For what’s it worth, my big ac meal is only 10.6€.
Not that much, that’s for sure.
Exploiting the poor people.
Dolla dolla bill
Funneling all our money into the hands of the already rich.
It’s a privilege to provide all that freedom to the hard-working innovators that make this country great! (Heavy sarcasm)
We live to serve our corporate overlords.
I remember when what you ordered would have been around $7 total. Wasn’t that long ago either.
I’ll just get my four for $4 from Wendy’s thanks.
Even that is four for $5 near me now.
Yup. They got rid of the 4 for $4 and replaced it with the $5 biggie bag or a $6 biggie bag.
It’s the same exact items just a dollar extra
Where on earth is a Big Mac $18? I’m not paying to read that article.
If you follow the linked NY Post article in the article, you can find out that it is a McDonald’s at a rest stop in Connecticut.
Again, not paying to read an article.
If you’d like to read it (and almost any other article) without paying I’d recommend this:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-view-firefox-android
I could access the entire thing with a single click
Awesome! Thanks!
In-N-Out is what McDonalds was 40 years ago.
Dick’s is where it’s at.
They would be if their fries stayed hot and crispy for more than 35 seconds.
I’m not familiar with in n out. Most chain burger places cost their fries in chemicals to make them crunchy longer. A natural cut fry becomes unappetizing like 10 minutes after it’s out if the fryer.
There are trade offs with each way.
One is “cleaner” or maybe purer One has a better customer experience
In-n-Out has famously “bad” fries for 2 reasons:
-
they single fry, not double fry. This is the classic way fries are fried and actually the big innovation that made McDonalds fries so famously good. Double frying results in a crispier and better tasting fry at the cost it being worse for you. Also let’s them transport them easier en masse
-
they go light as fuck on the salt (some locations I’ve been to didn’t salt at ALL though that may have been a mistake during a rush), to the point they provide salt packets to salt your own fries, which many people don’t do.
I think they might also fry theirs in peanut oil like 5GBAF do, but I’m uncertain on that front.
Personally I think their fries are some of the better ones but you gotta salt em
double fry
I worked McDonald’s when I was 16 (37-years ago 😢) and we didn’t do that.
Worked a famous bar-and-grill in college and they taught us that, but we called it “blanching”. You could damn near serve hour-old fries, still crispy.
Is blanching the wrong term?
-
They soak them in sugar water to keep them crunchy when deepfried It’s an old practice.
So a second-rate burger joint instead of a third-rate joint?
Who the fuck pays $18 to eat at McDonalds?
The only way I can justify eating at McDonald’s is by using their app to get free fries n such. Usually I can get out of there with lunch for between 5 and 10 bucks.
Even so, the value of Wendy’s Biggie Bag blows McDonald’s pricing out of the water, if I’m choosing to have fast food, I might as well have that.
I really like a sausage muffin with cheese, but fortunately for my health, I can never make it there early enough to get breakfast.
I just ate the big Mac meal like 30 minutes ago. And in one of the most expensive states, it was $11.93 large.
For real. Most of the best burgers I’ve had were cheaper than that… In Copenhagen of all expensive-ass places.
It’s all the fast food joints. I’m in Canada and I took my wife and daughter to burger king the other day. 3 whopper meals and a couple of apple pies later and it comes out to almost $60 with tax, shit is insane
Should have come out to about $47 for 3 whopper meals with 3 apple pies after tax. You’re paying someone to make and bring you food. It’s a luxury.
Lemmy trends young. They really do think fast food is “normal” food. You GenX as well? For us eating out was a special treat, not another Tuesday.
While I’d argue that fast food prices are through the roof, I’d also argue that it’s a luxury. I simply won’t pay until they come down.
Do you have a point?
My point is that the person I was replying to was lying about the cost of the food. The original post is about the cost of fast food. I contend that as long as people treat fast food as a necessity and not a luxury (which it very much is) then the market will decide how much is too much money. Clearly people are still paying for trash food at elevated costs, then complaining about it later. I further contend that this doesn’t do shit to incentivize McDonald’s to lower their prices.
The original comment said they took their family to Burger King and then you made up that they had it delivered and that was why it cost what it did.
I’m not sure why you decided to make that up when it didn’t fit the comment, nor why you expected a full itemized list in a copy to price compare against, but ok.
I guess they deserve to be paid extra for not making you walk into their kitchen and get the food yourself.
No I never said anything about delivery? Lmao I just looked up BK prices in Canada. They said 3 Whopper meals and 3 apple pies. They created the itemized list, not myself. Thanks for coming out.
It’s a luxury to eat fast food now? Used to be that buying your kid a happy meal was a good, cheap solution to dinner, now it’s a luxury? By the way 3 $15 meals plus tax does come out to over $55, I was off by 5, sorry I offended your corporate dick sucking sensibilities
Yes, eating food cooked from a restaurant is a luxury. This concept has been lost along the way of the last couple of decades.
When I was a kid, that idea of “going out to eat” rather than having home-cooked food, was an occasional luxury instead of a regular staple of the diet. That was back in the last century.
Now we have an obesity epidemic. People need to remember that restaurant food, including fast food, is actually a luxury.
Gosh, I can’t see how any of those things are connected…
Yes. Having someone prepare and bring you food, and then clean up after you is a luxury, not a right.
“It’s a luxury to eat fast food” yes.
Growth is slowing. So their sales are still going up, just not as fast as the CEO would like so he could get his 5th yacht by Friday.
What the… I use the 30% coupon and buy the big Mac bundle box which has 2 big macs, 2 cheeseburgers, 2 large fries, and a 10 pc nugget in it. Always too much food but super cheap at $16.
For 4 people, right?
… Yes.
2 humans and 2 doggos
I want to say that dogs probably shouldn’t be eating that stuff, but I guess humans shouldn’t, either…
Indeed, but it’s cheap. When it stops being cheap compared to healthier options I’ll eat healthier.
1 person, 4 times.
McDonald’s keeps surprising well in a car over winter. Just grab a quick burger or some nuggies from the glovebox the next 3 days.
“Food”
That’s more expensive than me going to “better” fast food places like Chipotle, Panda Express, etc. Which is silly because McD’s is only a choice for me when there’s nearly nothing else I trust to eat.
I wouldn’t call any of those options better. Idk about your taste if food if you like cold mostly rice burritos, or cold mostly rice and katsup chicken. I’ve been priced out of fast food because of these rising costs for a couple years now and making my own food is quite a bit healthier and cheaper even though I hate cooking.
Well, it’s a rest stop, so I’d imagine it’s also more expensive than you going to a McDonald’s.
You trust to eat McDonalds?
Usain Bolt eats McDonalds when overseas that’s how reliable it is.
When it’s that, gas stations, and local places that look shady on the road, sure? The only thing McD’s really has going for it is they maintain franchise consistency in their food.
Well, that and Big Macs are delicious…
If the finest dining in an area is a McDonald’s, I just skip a meal.
Thank god we didnt raise minimum wage, otheriwse the price of big macs would have sky rocketed!!!
I think the idea that minimum wage hikes contributed to this is silly given that they’ve mostly eliminated cashier positions. Everything is a kiosk now. Also, McDonald’s workers in Europe make a decent wage, have sick and vacation time, and other decent benefits and the prices there are lower than in the US.
Chipotle posted a few years back that raising the minimum wage to $15 (more than double current minimum wage) would increase the price of a burrito by about 30 cents.
I live in Denmark, Europe. One Bic Mac meal is 9.39 USD incl taxes.
The minimum salary in McDonals is around 3500 USD per month for a standard 37 hr/week, including pension.
This is every month, not affected by holidays, sick leave, paid vacation… It comes with 5 or 6 weeks of paid vacation per year, and virtually unlimited sick leave.
Yeah, I also don’t understand why McDonald’s says they can’t raise salaries or improve working conditions, because it will make the price go up. So why is it expensive now?
(Yes, taxes are high here. But we also have a lot of stuff that is tax paid, that evens it out somewhat.)
Yeah, I also don’t understand why McDonald’s says they can’t raise salaries or improve working conditions, because it will make the price go up.
They say that because Americans are dumb enough to believe it and not get mad at McDonald’s for price gouging. A LOT of companies over here have been doing the same thing lately.
I don’t believe that a Big Mac meal hit $18, except maybe at one or two locations that are outliers. I can’t read the article though because it’s paywalled.
Yeah. That def seems to be the case.
mcdonalds has been inedible garbage for easily the last 25+ years - who eats there?
McDonalds has a better chicken sandwich then Panera Bread, and I’m not joking.
The panera i worked at years ago had no kind of fryer…
They had microwaves though
I bet they microwave their chicken like all their pasta
Panera is a low, low bar.
Lots of people. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean nobody else does either.
The issue isn’t the quality of the food and whether or not someone likes it. Restaurants are a luxury, not a right. People who think it’s too expensive don’t need to eat there. You don’t need to eat at McDonalds.
The issue is that for a lot of people it was the only affordable place, and now it’s not.
I don’t eat McDonald’s or really any fast food. The last time I got fast food was a burger King after a 12 hour hike where I got a bit turned around in the woods and ended up getting out three hours after I planned and my regular go to on the way home was closed. The time before that was probably back when I was in college
But there are people who eat it almost every day. Not because they want to, but because it’s the only thing they can afford to eat. That being taken away is shocking. Especially paying 18 dollars for a burger fries and drink? At McDonald’s quality?
Absolutely. If McDonalds wants to price itself out of its own market that’s their decision, the onus is on consumers to stop patronizing the establishment.
We’ve become a nation of addicts to salt, sugar, and fat, and we’re all the worse for it. People forget that the only way a company lowers prices is if demand drops.
I saw a show where a lady ate couch cushions and she liked the used ones cuz they tasted better.
Y’all eat complete trash and call it food with your one fucking taste bud.
Y’all
Yeees. Throw stones. I’m sure you and whatever demographic you’re identifying with have absolutely no skeletons in your closet and nothing easy to mock.
I farted so this cushion should taste extra great for you ma’am.
Other people that exist. You should maybe learn about thrm some time.
Every day I thank the gods I learned how to cook at home
I like to cook but some days I’m out of the house 5am - 9pm and I work six days so weekly food prep is hit and miss.
If you must drink soda with your hamburger, Mcdonalds probably doesn’t feel like an awful deal. No one drinks soda anymore tho. You get a “free soda” with the “value” meal.
