McDonald's is reportedly using AI to "dynamically" price its burgers
McDonald’s has been using artificial intelligence to dynamically price menu items in the US and some global markets, according to a report by Reuters. This involves finding the “optimal price” to match what a particular store’s patrons would be willing to pay.
This fluctuates according to location, and even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items, according to information reviewed by Reuters. This is basically surge pricing, like with ride-share platforms, but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.
Reuters got a look at the interface that franchisees use to access this technology and it’s pretty creepy. Messages show stuff like “your restaurant is showing MEDIUM SENSITIVITY to price” based on “customer willingness to pay in your area.” Cost differences at nearby locations can be stark. Researchers found that a Bic Mac at a Fresno, California store cost $5.69, but the same burger cost $6.89 at another branch two miles down the road. That’s a 21 percent difference.
I mean this is the obvious use case for AI, you know they have those digital price tags in supermarkets it’s perfect for this to combine with AI so depending who is looking at this price tag it changes, but in a way so you don’t see it changing. I’m not saying it’s already implemented but it’s the obvious thing to do.
Online it’s already much easier to do because you’re logged in to Amazon with your purchase history, etc. and you are the only one looking at the price tag, so no real need for AI there, but in a physical shop it will also be introduced, just like McDonald is ‘pioneering’ here.
They should never released Black Mirror, too many dystopian ideas there.
Online, search in an incognito window using a VPN. Firefox has a builtin VPN toggle these days. Then, only once you found what you’re looking for, login and buy it. And bail if they change the price.
It’s weird that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but honestly whatever: if fewer people are supporting that horrible chain, I’ll consider it a win regardless of their motivation.
Corporatism makes every layer incredibly detached from each other, with everyone seeking their own glory, fuck the rest.
I can guarantee you that they hired some middle manager - not yet C-suite, but also not direct worker manager (say, an engineering or product manager) - like a VP, or Assistant VP (assveep), who recently joined the company, and has some very... Specific target KPIs to reach to get their bonus.
Basically, all the corpo layers are KPI driven, and you in your secluded job, will only focus on a single, specific aspect, instead of a holistic image.
What Maccas sees here is a manager who delivered what they were tasked with: AI driven pricing. Their goal was to have a system that adjust pricing for each person, outcomes be damned. The manager doesn't care, their job isn't to take care of the entire company, but to deliver that one tunnel-vision task.
This is actually why a lot of companies fail nowadays. I used to work for WBD, pre-merger on the D side, and this shift was incredibly obvious once management was pushed from the UK to the US (okay, pushed isn't the right word, they fired all UK managers and put all UK engineers under US managers). With local managers we had sensible deliverables, actual scopes and effects analysis, and they pushed back on idiotic requests. To give an example, I was working on the video playback component of the Discovery+ apps (in the US we had separate build flavours for all the channels, the rest of the world got the unified D+ with all the channels). Two channel heads approached us and wanted extensive feature implementations for a handful of niche programmes. My manager pushed back because those features would've used up 70% of our team's capacity and they didn't even have a cost analysis let alone any arguments for product value increases! But because those two channel directors were buddy-buddies with leadership, and (presumably) they were banging the two product managers who came up with these genius ideas, there was tons of corporate back and forth to get it done.
On the other hand, once we moved over to a US based manager; everything shifted. Our autonomy was reduced, and we had some product and head-of people pointed out as "never refuse anything they ask for", because those people's requests directly boosted the KPI of this manager, and the manager cared about nothing (not even doing his job, all EM tasks were offloaded to team lead engineers...) but his bonus - and as predicted, two years and two bonuses later, he "sadly" left the company with a hefty package (his termination pay alone was 6x my annual salary...). Meanwhile we had to deal with insane demands, no-pushback policies, and PMs that had to be pleased no matter what. Oh and on top of that, an enforced, illegal overtime scheme for on-call duties (this ended up buying them in the ass and as it came out during my redundancy consultation, I ended up getting a hefty 6-digit payout just so I don't report them to like three different British government agencies).
I’m just baffled by such destructive company policies. Last year I worked for a very dysfunctional company (a major bank) where a lot of people seemed to be extremely adverse to solving the actual problems the company was facing. I was told it was politically sensitive. Later someone else explained that product owners had too much power but were only interested in building their portfolio, and not in whether any of it was actually good.
Categorisation and such models are wayyyyyy cheaper to train and run than LLMs. And the training data is just their own price and sales history by location, nothing to scrape the whole Internet or scan unknown books for. This costs them very little at their scale.
That said, their dynamic pricing would have to halve the prices to get me to go again. Because the price of a big tasty meal is nearly twice what a double bug tasty meal was 6 or 7 years ago. Beef has also nearly doubled, but the other ingredients have not.
Every time my brain tries to drift to McDonalds, I’m like “I could go get a Digorno which would be 1/3-1/5 the price” and then just sit at my house eating canned soup or something because I am fairly lazy.
I do not say to simply avoid them, because that means they can get away with this shit!
Go there and discuss their floating prices. Ask them what this is, why they are doing such shit. Tell them that you won’t accept it. Steal them their time and nerves.
McD is a centralized company. They are going to recognize what the cattle they feed general public is doing, and they are going to calculate exactly what this public reaction costs them.
Can someone smarter than me explain what end game dynamic pricing looks like? I feel like supply/demand will move the price of essentials up as wealthy people buy items at higher prices. It eill be easier for a company to make 200 roles of toilet paper a year and sell them for $10k as an extreme example.
End game is probably a monthly subscription model where you can buy the privilege of getting fixed prices for a month. People that lack a McMealPlan or whatever will pay according to their social credit score, inventory levels within a given location, or simply the whims of the franchisee.
Unfortunately, if the cruelty of the (engineered) computer memory crisis is anything to go by, it might be exactly like your example with toilet paper. McDonald’s could decide that it’s more profitable for them to do some kind of catering model and price the average individual consumer out of relevance
The bigger issue is the feedback loop: a model trained on willingness-to-pay signals can turn temporary local differences into a self-reinforcing pricing policy. If companies use this, I’d want clear disclosure, a way to compare nearby prices, and some guardrails against using proxies for income or neighborhood demographics.
Anyone with any sense and other options stopped eating there a long time ago. I feel bad for those who literally live where there’s no other viable option, mostly because it will rapidly make the last possible option non-viable.
I have zero sympathy for those with good alternatives that don’t walk away. The company ran its course. Let it burn.
Are there people who can’t prepare the most basic foods themselves? I’d always prefer to prepare or cook something myself over getting fast food. Even a slice of bread with some cheese or meat plus some carrots or such is better than fast food in my eyes (and much cheaper anyways).
Are there people who can’t prepare the most basic foods themselves?
Sadly yes, either because they were never taught or never learned the basic skills, or live in food deserts that basically prevent them from access to groceries they can purchase and cook.
This guy gets it. There’s legitimately people who couldn’t get the food, don’t have the facilities to prepare it in their shoebox apartment, don’t have the skills to prepare it, have next to nothing for food storage capacity, and/or are on too much of a time crunch to actually prep their own food.
Does that describe everyone? No. Do they exist? Absolutely, and sadly more common than people realize. I’m extremely blessed to have a comfortable suburban house and all the access in the world to the resources I need, but I came up in less favourable circumstances and have old acquaintances who are still there. A grocery store was hard enough to get to it may as well have been on the moon for all the time and transportation I had to get there, my access to tools and appliances to cook were effectively non-existent and the fridge and freezer I had access to couldn’t hold a full week of food to begin with. Living on convenience store taquitos and fast food wasn’t a choice, it was that or starve, and you ate what was open when you had time.
I know people in their 30s who don’t know how to cook beyond microwave meals and actively don’t want to learn. Some of them have enough money they basically always go out to eat and drive throughs are convenient
It’s actually a problem that people usually doesn’t prepare food tried to, and have to spend an hour on everything to make mediocre food, to the point that there’s thousands of video teaching how to preo food quickly. Internet Shaquille’s video are basically made to combat that.
You can go to the grocery store and buy frozen French fries and frozen patties and heat them in a toaster oven and it will be cheaper and better than McDonald’s.
Granted for that you need a freezer and a toaster oven and a grocery store, and many people don’t have those.
For where I live, the last time I looked into this (in 2024), if you wanted to make a burger with the same amount of meat and toppings as a basic mcdouble, you’re looking at spending almost $50 upfront for ingredients (meat, bun, cheese, onion, and ketchup) and even by weight you’re barely breaking even.
I’m so glad I quit going. And if I quit going, pretty much everyone has
I had one of those less than stellar childhoods, but I had a fantastic grandparent that would take me to McDonald’s sometimes, and that was A HUGE BRIGHT SPOT for me, back when they had aquariums and play places in them? Like, until pretty recently, I was a die-hard fan. I WANTED to like them. What they actually tasted like almost didn’t matter, the SIGHT of the yellow arches made me start to think about what being loved by a trusted adult feels like.
They had to WORK TO LOSE ME as a customer rather than the other way around. And they still managed.
It’s sad but true… drive through still full in my area. I often find McDonald’s trash polluting the parks and sidewalks. What’s the point of the “paper” cups when they’re lined with plastic or something that causes them to never decompose?
Why do you think that? I didn’t say anything about current events or politics and this new AI story only confirms a decision I already made and am guessing most other people already made
That’s a fine counterclaim, and we could dig into that more if you want to, but where did politics and current events come into it? AI maybe if you misunderstood my first comment but IDK about the other two at all
Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Taco Bell… [is] developing AI platforms for just about everything, including a dynamic drive-thru menu that changes based on the car approaching the window.
Bet you didn’t algorithm this portly fuck in a tricked out ‘93 Del Sol wanting 55 enchritos until tonight.
Dynamic pricing nudges the price to the maximum a customer can afford which temporarily maximises profits but creates in the mind of the customer a feeling of being relentlessly over charged and eventually and long-term they won’t come back.
I don’t like vendors who think they can take advantage of me for a few extra bucks because of what they see (isn’t that a form of prejudice?)
Same with haggles at flea markets or garage sales. If you don’t label your prices I’m immediately not interested. I’m a demographic that looks “put together” and thus “wealthy” when in reality I’m basically broke and would file for bankruptcy if it’d clear my debt.
So when I come across a haggler (usually an old guy or a foreigner from a country that has a culture of haggling) I tend to avoid them because I don’t enjoy that process. Thats why America came up with price tags and fixed pricing for stuff. Way less hassle. Only idiots really savor the process of haggling. It sucks.
Nah dude, haggling rules. I get and respect your attitude that you don’t like it, because you’re coming from a place of fairness and transparency. But haggling isn’t about ripping people off—quite the opposite, it’s about finding a deal that both parties are happy with. It’s also more important in some cultures than others, e.g. to some people not haggling is actually rude.
The secret is that you can still haggle when there are price tags and fixed prices. You can ask for discounts, etc. I’ve successfully haggled my rent down! There are no rules! It’s basically a socially acceptable form of social hacking.
If haggling is idiotic, then I’m saving too much money to not be idiotic.
I mean yeah, I basically got sick of landlords arbitrarily raising rents, and so I eventually started negotiating back with them, and it worked way better than I expected.
I would dramatically prefer a system of transparent rent control, but sadly there are no rules like that where I live.
I mean it’s peoples fault really. They let them get through with this. Shit food, shit prices, smaller portions etc and people still queue to get a burger.
Unfortunately things will get shittier because people are just too careless about these things so we can’t have nice things.
Absolutely. If people accept it they’ll keep doing it.
However, if they’re departing from a straightforward price tag where prices are consistent and pre-agreed, it sounds like we’re going back to the time of bartering. Anywhere that implements this, customers should be prepared to say no at the till. They might backtrack on this when customers with a huge trolley pull up at the checkout and then refuse to pay because they disagree with the amount.
Yup. You can lead a horse to water…if people wanna pay let them. The only thing is if people whine about this to me and keep on doing it, i will pull them on it.
I often hear ‘i have no money’ …are you sill ordering uber eats 4 times a week then actually you do have enough.
I know it sounds judgmental but i have low tolerance for helping people who refuse to realise their part in their mess
Hey there, it looks like you’re short the money needed for your purchase.
Five 4 hour shifts will get you your meal you need. Get to work and you’ll get our 🤡 token in exchange for the food. Don’t forget to smile to greeting customers! You’ll get a nice bonus"
I suspect the president is just lying about that being his favorite to seem normal and not the silver spoon trust fund baby he is that eats fancy food cooked by personal chefs.
So glad Washington state was the first state to ban AI “Surveillance Pricing” at Grocery Stores. Hopefully it expands to dynamic pricing and for all business soon.
I don’t know who is going there any more. I know there are people, I have one a few blocks away and the drive through is always full but you can go to local places and get good food for so much cheaper.
Kids who want happy meals drag their parents there. However once they hit 5th grade the allure of the happy meal fades and they usually don’t come back.
Oh no a socialist ‘planned’ economy via computers. Argentina don’t you dare! … I’m sure glad we have capitalist ‘planned’ economies now. Their plan is to fuck you till you die. More surveillance please! Surveillance-capitalism demands it!
On the plus side, surveillance pricing legislation has already been introduced in (IIRC) four states just this year, and if I had to guess, we could eventually see state-level bans in at least half of the states.
This, like the electronic tags at Walmart, or Uber charging more when your phone battery is low, or Target mining your loyalty club data to surge price you, is something that they’re speedrunning to try and normalize before the law catches up.
The issue is that these are black boxes. No one but the authors of the system know what’s happening. Law prevents Uber from increasing the price on a nearly flat mobile-computer? They didn’t. That’s just the normal price. Who has all the data? Only Uber. No one else. How then can you enforce such laws?
No government is going to enforce a universal flat-rate. However that doesn’t prevent what I’m talking about. Uber can give everyone a different flat-rate. How would you know? You wouldn’t. That’s the problem. A friend gets charged a different flat-rate? Ok, now you know, but when the government goes to investigate Uber says, “well the flat-rate had to increase. It’s now XXX.” Again, the imbalance is enormous between the businesses that have the data and any external regulatory body that has to do footwork to get any data.
The same item sells for two different prices at separate stores? “Oh, that store just had a sale.”
That’s not necessarily true. It’s ridiculously easy to find, especially in this example. Simply change your pickup address to the house next door.
People are much more perceptive about this activity than you give them credit for, and in fact, there’s a whole sub-genre of content creator that focuses on it. There are also leakers. That documentation will find its way to local authorities and become actionable when the amount of it passes a certain threshold, not unlike the number of dead kids translating to FB having to go to court.
That’s not necessarily true. It’s ridiculously easy to find, especially in this example. Simply change your pickup address to the house next door.
Do you think that fools Uber into believing that the user using the same mobile-computer, the same account, the same data-connection and within the same travel patterns is now a completely different person?
Except you know, all the cities that already do for taxis, which is what Uber is, regardless of how it tries to skirt around it. Get a taxi, the rate is literally posted on the side of the vehicle. Yes, taxis certainly have their own issues, but it’s a sure whole lot more honest than Uber pricing, and that’s the bottom of the barrel.
Yep. I’ve been saying for years that if ubers were regulated like taxis, they would cost the same amount as taxis, and the company would have no reason to exist. It’s not about using new tech to provide new services, it’s about using new tech to skirt regulation—and also the regulations existed for great reasons, and we get to rediscover why.
The same way everything is enforced in billionaire-owned America: fines that, at the end of the day, are likely a minute fraction of a corporation’s profits, though some states will be heavier-handed than others. The Federal Government does not lead on any issue that is of crucial importance to the consumer anymore, so the states are where the power of regulation lies. It’s not ideal but something is better than nothing in this case.
Ultimately, how you fare in this ecosystem depends on your own digital hygiene. The best thing you can do for yourself is simply not consume these products in the first place, but that’s not really an option for many who may live in food deserts or have no options for shopping but Walmart or Target, which is why some measure of regulation is inevitable in most of the states, I think.
My recommendation is to avoid pieces of software that mine your data, like Windows, apps, and certain Internet browsers, use a VPN on any device you use to access the Internet, and 100% avoid loyalty clubs. Old-school methods are best, like making a reservation over the phone for example.
This is the one aspect of “Tech” that is turning me from an enthusiast into an honest Luddite. Our systems of regulation are so weak and ineffective at catching up to these sorts of exploitative practices and by design that I don’t see much being done to help people get ahead of this
You can make just about everything at home and it’ll be better quality. The only thing thats really hard to replicate are the fries, which are one of the best things at McDonalds when they’re fresh. Even if you have a deep fryer at home (unlikely) they go through multiple processes that give them their unique taste and texture.
But burgers are easy to make, the trick is roll a 2 oz patty of ground chuck as thinly as you can. 2mm thick is ideal cause it’ll thicken up and shrink in diameter a little as it cooks. Salt and pepper are the only seasonings used.
Dehydrated chopped onions are easy to find and they can be made in seconds at home by rehydrating them. Bam. You got a double cheeseburger. A Big Mac uses their special sauce and some rotten shredded lettuce. The sauce recipes are all online and I even think companies make clone sauces now you can buy at the store. I know Arby’s sells their sauces at the store now.
I haven’t tried it but I’ve been told Walmart sells the same frozen hashbrowns McDonalds uses. Way cheaper than way and you just toast them quick right out of the freezer.
Fuck McDonalds. They’ve become something to actively avoid and if you like something there do some research cause someone online has figured out how to make it at home.
It was a late 20th century novelty symbolizing the heights of American culture and capitalism. By now much of the world has experienced McDonalds and generally fast food. Most of the developed world at least.
And soon someone will have the “Where is The Cheapest” mcdonalds app that guides them to the location that is hurting for business and has lowered their price, effectively negating the process.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with McDonalds doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap. I had gone probably decades without going into one, but happened to on a road trip. Big ugly kiosks? Nope. I left.
I can’t see how this could be illegal. They should be able to adjust their prices any time they want. Well except after you order I guess.
Gathering data about the customers that persists, is personally identifiable, and not discoverable, now THAT should be illegal.
I don’t see a problem with McDonald’s doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap
Okay, great, this specific case doesn’t apply to you. Thank goodness no other business will be encouraged to adopt this model and suddenly make groceries more expensive during the post-work/pre-dinner rush and on weekends.
Restaurants already do this: Lunch is one price, Happy Hour another, Dinner another, and then late night often yet another menu.
A business can charge whatever they want, and hopefully it will empower more food coops and consumer owned businesses.
Edit: Most of the places I like to go to, I know who works there, I know who owns it.
I wonder if touristy places will eventually get facial recognition, so that prices are much higher for tourists?
Which leads me to the part that actually bothers me, the data collection and identification. Its not the pricing itself that bothers me, its the data required to do it.
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing. We have menu’s because some food is more expensive than others. 2 eggs and some hash browns costs less then a hamburger with full dressings, fries and a soft drink.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
Now if that example above seems fine with you, change out the skin color and clothing type to something stereotypically negative and then tell me it’s not prejudice for someone to base a business transaction on those attributes (which the Supreme Court has in the past ruled is illegal to do.)
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing
Yes it is. Less people at lunch. More people at dinner. Less people at 4 - 6 in between. They all are different prices reflecting the different number of people that time will attract. It isn’t simply what the food is made of.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
I guess that’s one way to look at it. I would imagine most use cases would be: “this person is from Extremely Rich Estates”, so lets tack on an extra $10 to their order. Or this person wants their order first, so charge a premium. Welcome to tipping the bartender hard to get noticed (also dynamic pricing is it not?)
I don’t get why you want to negatively use dynamic pricing, that seems counter productive to making money, but whatever. (EDIT: I will acknowledge that fast food can be an addiction or a bad habit, and I definitely can see a company preying on that).
People in business do it all the time already: I get jobs I don’t want to do, I ask for a lot to do it. I get a job that I know will lead to more jobs, I charge less. I get a job for a wealthy person I charge more so I can do work on the cheap for someone who needs it.
Look at the end of the day I think I have been clear: its the data collection that bothers me the most. Which fits into your argument, I don’t want any personal identifiable information, or race, or address, or location, etc collected. Period. For any damn reason. THAT is what needs to be illegal. If they want to say more people come in at lunch, and the longer the line gets the more they want to charge, fine.
The bargain with fast food was that it was shitty for you, but it was quick, cheap, and tasted good. Now it’s even WORSE for you, costs as much as an actual meal, and increasingly tastes like garbage. What exactly are people trading off now?
After a couple weeks of almost total carb exclusion, you stop craving it. Slightly sweet things taste too sweet. You can try to return to a reasonable carb intake and it lasts right up until you have some social event where you eat a small amout of some nice confection. That’s how it works for many people anyway.
I’ve found cutting sugar bit by bit helps, limit it to weekends, cut it out of hot drinks, then limit hot drinks to 1/day in the morning since they tend to have sugar built in. Best method when starting is to remember that its far easier to exercise self control in the shop than it is once the stuff is already in your home. Now sugar is something I can take or leave rather than crave, also made me realize that there are a lot of savory foods with an objectively better taste when you don’t have that sugar craving biassing the decision.
there was ONE McDonald’s that I used to still go to on road trips.
then the US threatened to take over my country, so ofc I stopped going to McDonald’s. I tried to make an exception for it last year because I had to pee and I figured it would be the one place actually open at 1am for me to pee and get a coffee, but nope, closed. guess they want people to piss in the drive thru
McDonald’s doesn’t even offer washrooms anymore, they have literally nothing to offer me
More reasons to not eat McDonalds. It sure seems like they are trying to shift from being a hamburger chain into full real estate company and are trying to sabotage their weaker franchises so they can cash out the properities PE style.
No, corporate owns most of the stores property then leases that to franchise owners. If one wanted to liquidate some of the property they owned and downsize operations they’d have to kick out the franchise owners first.
For the price of one decently sized McDonald’s meal here in Australia (about $16) I can comfortably feed myself for a week of healthy, filling dinners, and maybe lunches too, using staple foods and in-season veg.
When I’m bored, I get price quotes from Lyft and Uber to the airport. I’ll click around and look at the different tiers of service. Then I choose not to actually request a fare, and close the app.
I fly enough to where both apps probably have me as a regular airport customer, but that I’m price sensitive enough where I just won’t use their service sometimes.
I do the same with Doordash and other food apps, where I just put together potential orders to get a sense of how much something would cost if I ordered it, and then just never order it, letting that cart expire. I’m hoping this poisons their data or adds something to the price sensitivity metrics.
I also look at airfares, hotel prices, etc., a lot. It’s not for the purpose of manipulating their algorithms, as I just like to get a sense for how prices move over time. But if there’s a side effect that these variable pricing algorithms take into account people who window shop and walk away, maybe I’m helping push prices down.
If they’re gonna create a panopticon, we should fuck with their data.
Yeah, my first thought was that such a system was likely gameable.
But then my second thought was that idgaf what any of the McDonald burgers cost. The price they’d need to set to get me to “buy” them wouldn’t be economically viable for the company because I have no clue how a “pay customers to take our burgers” scheme could work out favorably for them.
At least where I live, what they cost is ‘way too much’. You can get a meal from a decent restaurant for the same price, and their burgers have shrunk considerably.
I remember even when I still thought I liked them, I’d never feel satisfied after finishing a meal. For a while I mistook that for meaning I liked the food. Like “oh I just had one but want another already, must be good”. But no, I think now that it was just a sign of my body being well aware that it didn’t have enough nutritional value to meet its needs.
I’ve had other occasions where I’ll finish a combo and wish I had more with other fastfood places, but it’s not a constant experience like it was with McDonald’s.
Hell, that time they did that 2 big macs for $2 (just the burgers) deal, I bought 4 of them. I was full by the end of the 3rd and gave the 4th away but still wasn’t satisfied, I just couldn’t physically fit any more in my stomach.
Anyways, all that to say that any price is “too much” for those empty calories. But yeah, it used to be ok for “something quick and cheap to put in your stomach on a long drive” but even that is no longer the case.
Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, if big tech’s ad behavior (ads for stuff you’ve already bought, ads for things you’d never buy but might have looked up information about for non-consumer reasons) is any indication, I’m not actually sure they’re using really sophisticated techniques here that can’t be thrown off by one-off bored sessions.
Isn’t this going to hurt them more than it helps them? The whole point of places like McDonald’s is I know that no matter what location I go to I will get the same food at the same price.
If I don’t know in advance how much a meal is going to cost I might as well just go to a local business since the quality will be better.
even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items
That has been a thing for years.
A local guy did the legwork pre-covid to price check a list of items at every McD’s in the city and found that there was a significant difference in price across the city.
The patterns he found were that franchisees were generally consistent across their own locations, and that the locations in the more affluent parts of the city tended to be more expensive.
The only real surprise was that corporate didn’t mandate exact prices across an entire market area.
To be clear the dynamic pricing isn’t the problem in this story, they did that before AI. It becomes a problem when they use surveillance to change prices per person rather than per store.
I don’t buy McDonal’s because the price/value equation is off. Whether it is off because they think I’m rich or because they think I’m addicted doesn’t really matter. The result is that I just don’t buy.
But if I was a regular customer, I would see unstable prices as a negative because it means, I have to research current prices first before going there. That’s inconvenient. I prefer reasonable and stable prices.
Maybe, McDonald’s introduces haggling next so customers can feel like they are buying a used car when they buy a burger…
Does it taste nice? I quit fast food 3 years ago but of all the things they serve, I don’t miss their burgers. Their fries and nuggets maybe, but I never want a McDonald’s burger. They just aren’t good at all, not by any metric.
About once a year I’ll convince myself fast food is a good idea. I always feel ill for a day after. Idk if it’s the mega sodium or the ultra processed grease, but I just feel queezy.
What’s even more weird is that going somewhere that isn’t a chain, like a local burger joint, doesn’t make me feel as bad. Maybe it’s all in my head or maybe the food is that much better.
I mostly miss the fries tbh. Fortunately a brewery near me has the bombest fries I’ve ever had, but sometimes you do just want those garbage McDonald’s fries.
Stopped at a Mcyds on a road trip and ordered a hamburger. Took a while and it sounded like they were not real sure how to assemble it. Not a big selling item anymore.
This reminds me of a video I saw where someone committed to this. New phone, use free offers, put stuff in cart but don’t buy, GPS in low income or low spend areas. They got someone from Craigslist to do much of this work.
It worked. I don’t remember channel or where they compared afterwards, though.
Seems like here it’s store based not individual customer based. Maybe you can get others to join you. Buy only the cheapest items, and the other items will get cheaper.
Pricing the items based on the specific customer is sketchy. A franchise working with a franchisee on the most profitable pricing model is what they are supposed to do. At best this is either a nothing burger of an article, at worst it hides the fact that some places are tracking customers and adjusting prices per person. Which is shit.
They already have your credit card on record for repeat purchases (if you pay digitally, they know who you are), thats not the data those apps are after. They are just as bad as tiktoc and reddit when it comes to tracking phone activity and asking for every permission that isnt nailed down. Your phone activity data is worth more to data brokers than a free sandwich every tuesday.
The average persons data is. I wonder what mine is worth. Surely it just says “yeah they are never going to willingly buy your product, target friends who will apply social pressure instead … Oh, they are just happy sitting there without ordering anything”
