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Discussion (66 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
A secondary reason is that they are American. Although I am American, I am currently a resident of another country that is targeted by American tariffs, so I am trying to buy local as much a possible.
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.
I don't go either, and the price is part of the reason. (I would go for the ice cream in summer, or for their cheap drinks promos).
Aren't the vast majority of McDonalds actually franchises vs corporate own where everything would be much more consistent?
McD was never good, but when it was $10 it was still an OK occasional convenient lunch option. At $20 there is zero reason to go there.
I ordered a McChicken + fries at the kiosk. Waited for 15 minutes at the counter before I asked where my food was.
The manager took my receipt, said the order was already picked up, and asked me what credit card I used.
The manager said I told her the wrong credit card number. I asked for the receipt back so I could do a chargeback and the manager threatened to call security on me.
So no, McDonald's isn't a premium experience. It was full of homeless fentanyl users last time I went. Maybe one of them stole my food, or maybe it was the employee that stole my receipt.
Either way, I've never had this problem at Five Guys. I am willing to pay $25 for a combo to avoid an experience like that.
Article 1. McDonalds (along with other traditionally cheap-food places) is now very expensive and not for poor people.
Article 2. McDonalds serves (and people are out there eating) unhealthy food.
Article 1 is news if you haven't been in a McDonalds in the last 5 years. Article 2 is obvious and is not really a new phenomenon.
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.
So not only they go more expensive but the quality stays low and actually got even lower).
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.
I'm not even convinced of the main premise that McDonald's is now much more expensive relative to other things. I think it just feels that way because we had a few years of high inflation.
Edit: Wait, are you trying to say their prices have decreased relative to inflation since the 90's??
Inflation is a pain in the rear.
There are a multitude of old brands that have hopped on this bandwagon. Brands like Lego, Pokemon, and Disney that started for children are now shifting their target market towards adults with money, maybe without kids, and are willing to pay for their childhood pleasures. I guess McDonalds is one of them too.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone described the ideal Lego customer as a "new software engineer in their mid 20s with a paycheck they want to spend on toys they wanted as a child", in response to Lego's newest release being a $200 branded set.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/mcdonalds-value-franchisees....
It feels like a reach presenting this without evidence that it is the same people. Especially without any nuance around health-conscious people still doing unhealthy things on occasion.
It has nothing to do with goombas, except the first person to illustrate the fallacy chose to draw goombas.
They also list a $5 meal deal that includes a McDouble, fries, 4 chicken nuggets, and a drink. That still seems like a really good price to me.
They do, however, have an asterisk that says "prices and participation may vary" - so not sure if it's widely available or not. It seems like McDonald's may now allow more pricing variation between franchise locations than they did in the past, so whether or McDonald's is still feels inexpensive may also depend on where you live. Being able to order a $1 McDouble in a high-COL city like San Francisco where nothing else cost a dollar always felt a little crazy to me, so I can see why it had to end eventually.
[1] https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/full-menu/extra-value-mea...
They definitely do. I order from 3 different McDonalds in my area depending on where I am when ordering, and all 3 have different prices for their items (especially the value menu). These places can literally be 10 minutes from each other, with one charging $0.50 more for a McDouble.
It got so bad they ran a promo that if your chips weren't hot and fresh they'd give you a new batch for free.
Guess it cost them too much because they killed that promo pretty quickly.
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.
On a local subreddit recently someone was asking where to get a decent lunch that "doesn't break the bank" and turns out that their target spend was $10. My answer was "Pack a peanut butter sandwich and an apple at home and take it to work with you." Which is my usual lunch.
I am just astonished that people spend $10-15 or more, every day, on lunch. And often will pay more to have it delivered.
Basically the only fast food left to me is Taco Bell, which as you may know earned its place by surviving the franchise wars.
They switched to vegetable oil 20+ years ago.
It now costs around 8.50 USD.
The inflation adjusted value of 2.99 USD in 1990 is about 7.88 USD.
Did the price go up? Sure. Are you likely getting slightly more in 2026 than you were in 1990? No idea, but it seems plausible to me.
Inflation is the answer.
It would have been one thing just to make the food taste better, but they went the opposite and made it take forever to prepare and serve. But for me the whole point to McDonald's was to get in, eat something consistently decent, get out quickly. So they actually made things worse, because I already had plenty of other spots to get "nice" food if that's what I was in the mood for.
I'm not going to say bring back the heat lamps per se but there was a lot of value to people like me in having a restaurant that delivered on the original promise of "fast" food...
Now maybe I should state that I never went there before either because I'm not into fast food but hey, why waste a good story?
>In the past fifty years, as factory farming spread from poultry to beef, dairy, and pork producers, the average cost of a new house increased nearly 1,500 percent; new cars climbed more than 1,400 percent; but the price of milk is up only 350 percent, and eggs and chicken meat haven’t even doubled. Taking inflation into account, animal protein costs less today than at any time in history. (That is, unless one also takes into account the externalized costs — farm subsidies, environmental impact, human disease, and so on — which make the price historically high.)
- from Eating Animals (2009) by Jonathan Safran Foer