McDonald's is a premium product now (2024)

I stopped going because the McDonald's closest to me stopped serving water. The only way for employees to fill a cup with water is to use the sink, and that's not an option offered to customers. There's no way to buy or be served a water, not even a bottle of it.

I seem to recall that Mcdonalds goes to pains to source locally.

There's a McDonald's near my home that I can order from if I'm craving garbage food quickly and don't feel well enough to leave the house, but they only get my order correct about 20% of the time. Another 20% of the time they make the wrong thing (e.g. the wrong kind of breakfast sandwich), and the remaining 60% of the time they forget to put half the order in (e.g. we ordered three of the Minecraft happy meal cube things a while back, plus an extra chicken sandwich, and we only got two of the cubes and no sandwich, plus we were missing two of the drinks for the meals).

The tariff issue is another reason not to patronize them, but at the same time if everyone in Canada stopped eating at McDonald's then McDonald's corporation would take a hit and thousands of Canadians would be immediately unemployed and thousands of Canadian suppliers of ingredients (beef, eggs, chicken, vegetables, etc) would lose a ton of business, so while I'd rather order from A&W for dozens of reasons I'm not outright boycotting American chains the way I am with American products.

In Canada they have a CAD$5 McValue meal deal, so USD$3.67 for a McDouble, small fries & small drink. Do they not have similar deals in your jurisdiction?

How do you communicate your guilt based purchases to the local citizenry ?

There's two definitions of "premium" and the author seems to have chosen the less commonly used definition.

1. Higher quality

2. Higher price

Products claim to be higher quality so that they can ask for a higher price. McDonalds doesn't seem to be doing this, they are just asking for a higher price. Most people would not call this premium, they would just call it expensive.

For me point 2 amplifies point 1. You could justify a higher price if the quality is better (and by quality, I mean both the health and type of ingredients used: not the type of product).

So not only they go more expensive but the quality stays low and actually got even lower).

I read it more as a segue into the main point about conflicting narratives in the American public regarding food.

Despite our excuses that we have to eat unhealthy fast food because it's cheap, we still eat it it once it's expensive. We all talk about how there is an obesity crisis yet we constantly promote and glorify unhealthy food on social media.

>Or maybe no one is fully logically consistent in their views. In the end, people will continue to consume this food even knowing full-well it’s unhealthy and overpriced. And for that, McDonald’s should not be too concerned.

Article 1 was true under 1990s prices. But you can get two double cheeseburgers for about four bucks and there aren't many who are so poor they can't afford that.

You ordered two complete meals (a drink, a side, and an entree), you probably got it in 30 seconds, and the total was less than the cost of comparable meals at virtually any restaurant. And you were aghast? ....You are aware inflation makes things cost more over time, right? 2% per year means things cost 10% more after just 5 years

If you're on a GLP-1s and crave junk food (quite uncommon), almost all fast food places have a small combo that's around $5 that'll satisfy. At least Wendy's, Taco Bell, McDonald's, and others do.

Once you see the goomba, you can't unsee it...

How do you get cold fries? Is the bulb out in the heat lamps?

Also, it's been known for decades that you ask for fries with no salt so they have to make a new batch as they salt them immediately after cooking.

Order fries with no salt, and they will fry a whole new basket to fill your order. You have to wait, but you get fresh hot fries every time.

It’s being dated is actually quite fatal to his thesis, as not only did McDonalds significantly underperform the market over the past few years but mid 2024 was also the exact time their attempt to pivot to higher income brackets stumbled and they were forced to introduce stuff like the $5 meal deal to stop hemorrhaging customers.