This speaks for itself

Yes, but the right trajectory wasn't to make the building dull, it was the make better food for kids.

The advertising model has changed, but the food is still slop and the goal is still to draw in big families who can't afford to make dinner. What's changed over the last forty years has been the means by which people are incentivized to enter the building. You're no longer trying to bait children from the side of the road with a big van that says "Free Candy". Instead, you're focusing on bombarding kids with advertisements on YouTube streams and targeting parents with gamified repeat customer incentives. But they've also focused more on getting customers out the door than in, improving the speed and reducing the front-facing staff, such that customers are encouraged to get their food and leave rather than linger in kid-friendly private sector daycares.

The gorilla was shot and killed though.

Well this adult wants a colorful, fun, whimsical eatery to forget the humdrummery of daily life, is that too much to ask?

The McDonalds near me recently clobbered their tiny playplace and turned it into a ... conference room/center?

About the only time I went there was when I need a place for my kiddos to spend some energy on a rainy day at like 8am, before other things opened. I was happy to buy a coffee and biscuit for myself and maybe a treat for them to pay for my occupancy.

Now, though, and I know I wasn't a giant source of income, they have lost my custom and I just can't see how any real business would ever run a meeting in a McDonalds conference room, so it just seems like a dumb move.

Maybe they want to discourage parents bringing their children? That also seems pretty stupid.

Wasn't part of it related to backlash McDonald's got from essentially marketing themselves to kids? Make the place look nuts, kids say that's awesome, let's go there, now you got kids eating McDonald's. Not suggesting that is how it goes, but I believe I recall reading something to that effect, regarding a rationale behind the new look.

As an aside, the building looks boring, but so does everyone's "shades of gray" interiors inside and outside their homes. I drove black cars forever because black is best color for cars, but I got a blue one now, because we are just surrounded in shades of gray everywhere, and it is, as the sublemmy states, a boring dystopia.

i was really hungover and had taken some painkillers with codeine and i had a single mcdonalds cheeseburg and it was dynamite

The last time I ate McDonald's, I arrived in Pasewalk, a tiny town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, on a much delayed train at 2 in the morning. They where the only place that was open, and I hadn't eaten since noon.

That burger was kinda OK, but it might have been the circumstance. They stopped selling vegan burgers anyway, so whatever.

It reminds me of the Griswold's neighbors in the Christmas Vacation movie, Elaine and Ponytail

That's the point that I thought was obvious. Everyone else seems to be focusing on other factors..

Not entirely, the food and price was also way better back in the day, especially the 90s

If I recall correctly, they were forced. There's an obesity pandemic going on in children, mostly driven by excessive use of sugars and overconsumption of fast food and sodas. So, there were certain regulations limiting how directed at children the marketing could be. They can still charge exorbitant prices to children, their parents are the ones paying anyways.

I'm an adult who also enjoys fun. 😢

Look at fashion. There were huge changes from 1960s to 1970s to 1980s. The last wild change to clothes I can remember is pump basketball shoes. Cars used to come in dozens of wild colors; now everything is a generic neutral tone. BJork's swan suit is the last really outrageous fashion statement I can recall [I know someone showed up naked recently, but dozens of folks have worn equally revealing outfits over the years] Almost all the new movies coming out are re-makes.

Look at James Bond. Amazon acquired the studio that owns Bond and pushed out the producers who'd helmed the character for decades. The creative process is in the hands of MBAs who only care about the bottom line. I can spend hours talking about how bad Henry Ford the man was, but I give him credit for truly loving cars and driving. I'll bet 99% of the car executives today don't drive themselves, so why would they care about the rest of us?

I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state?

What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?

Your Radio Shack example is legit. I had an uncle who worked at Radio Shack as some sort of, idk, tech or something? I was a kid and it was in the 80's, all I knew was that he worked there and made good money doing it.

Then one day he gets recruited by a multinational tech corporation and moves to Berlin to work in a lab. He could've taken my aunt with him, but she cheated on him as soon as he left for the 2 probationary weeks he spent in Germany before the company in question committed to hiring him.

He eventually became a millionaire with dual citizenship and my aunt married some abusive dipshit who immediately went broke. Now she works in a pickle factory. Ain't life interesting?

Well fuckin said and spot on!

Also thanks for reminding me how great Radio Shack used to be. It used to be a place to get actual electronics components. And the people there knew their shit. And there was enough intelligent folks around to keep a place like that in business! God I miss those days..

What is the skeuomorphism here? Because I don't think that word means what you think it means.

I do think they have an obligation to be pretty. Pretty things make people happy. It's a contribution to the social project we're all working on.

A walkable city, not that a McDonalds drive-thru is specifically part of that, should have greenery, places to hang out, and pretty buildings to look at. People should like being wherever they happen to be.

If you compare the two buildings in the picture, the top one I'm sure you have to drive to, but it at least looks like an inviting place to hang out with your kids or something. The bottom one almost seems hostile to that idea. And the main reason it even looks like that is austerity. At least I think so. Big gray cubes are cheap to build and easily templateable.

This isn't about McDonald's this is about society. All the colour and excitement has gone, McDonald's is just one of the casualties.

I'm my country they made it illegal to market fast food directly to kids. It may not be a choice, it may be regulatory.

I stopped when I got old enough to realize the only thing I actually liked about McDonalds was the play place.

Now I give it a try like once every 3-4 years to remind myself how much it sucks.

Why would I? It tastes good if you don't eat often, local one near me has nice atmosphere, it's relatively cheap if you want a snack ( ...bag of chips match their cheapest deal ) and overall, I like it. Why would I stop?

I mean I did stop because their app ain't working on my phone due to change of ROM (...rly? My banking app works with some restrictions. Really, McD? )

In both cases it's millennials. It's even called "millennial grey."

I think their target group is exactly the same, they just aged a bit

Psshht. Imagine how badass the Empire State Building would look with a permanent King Kong statue on top.

Now imagine EVERY BUILDING.

I accept your apology.

They'd need to charge amounts that families can afford for that to work.

For laughs, I checked out how much the meal cost in my city. It's $12.

For two dollars more, I can get a better burger at my neighborhood bar.