Wendy’s Wants to Start Uber-like Surge Pricing in 2025

They’re going to enshitify every single aspect of our lives.

LOL, the asshole CEO called it an "enhanced feature".

I'd say go for it, but if Wendy's does it, everyone else will, so the likelihood that it will hurt their business is unlikely.

Enshittification will continue as long as people still buy their shit there.

The only language these fuckers understand is money. Dont buy their shit and it will turn around quickly.

But if you keep going there, and keep going with the new shot they come up with they will keep doing this shit until you stop.

why limit opportunistic gouging to airline tickets and private taxis? You want food now? Pay extra. You want hospital care now? Pay extra. You want a fire truck or an ambulance or the police now? Best not be poor.

Honestly how was *any *of this ever legal?

How about we try it with wages too, Wendy's? It's a busy time and you REALLY need me to finish a project? Well, my pay just surged, so pay up or come back later when I have nothing to do. How's that for an "enhanced feature" you greedy fucking pricks?

This is how Taco Bell wins the franchise wars.

< ties onion to belt >

Back when I was your age, restaurants had lunch and dinner menus with different prices.

lol does wendies get "surges"?

Well this is one less place I will ever buy food from even if they roll back on this.

Are they trying to win a "most hated franchise" award?

Oh shit it's 5 o'clock, I can't afford a burger now. Guess I gotta wait until 3am.

There isn't much traffic, we need to increase the price per order to keep our profits up.... Errr our employees "paid".

There's a rush, we need to increase the price per order because demand is so high and we want more money, errr to better pay our... Wait no we just like money.

I'm not driving to lunch when I don't know how much lunch is going to cost, gas price changes are already wild enough.

Evil product idea: track the eyes of customers and increase the price of anything they look at for 20 seconds.

What if I just sat in the drive through and said I'm not moving until the prices drop below surge?

This is definitely an MBA take.

Can't figure out how to add additional customers or create incentive to get them to spend more money? Well easy then. Take your most time crunched and trapped customer base and make them pay more.
This is simple price gouging to increase profit margins, and because it happens at whim of the business it's hard to avoid. But I bet if you get the app that lets them track you better than I'm sure they will let you know and heck even offer a discount just above the old price still.

A clever way would be having the original true $1 menu be available with any purchase that includes a numbered combo but fuck originality or thinking when you have a degree that says you are right and your only thought is increase cost.

Line only goes up just like their bank accounts.

Hang on let's think about this from all sides: It's probably a benevolent move by management to curb the insane overwhelm of the lunch rush!

...That way it can more easily be handled by the two gradeschool kids working double shifts to run the entire Wendy's. /s

Lol

Not sure how they think this won’t upset customers. I assume most customers won’t know there is a surge until they get to see the menu board. By the time they see it they will have already gotten in line. So they either get out of line or decide to pay. Either way I am sure they are going to leave upset. The only customers that won’t be upset are the ones that want to pay more for the same food or didn’t notice. The latter will be upset if they ever realize what happened.

oh fuck, I just realized what those dumb digital screen things they have in walgreens to replace glass fridge doors are for now. It's prep work for this.

Price discrimination should be illegal (with caveats, “student discounts” are considered PD, but not nearly as harmful as individual pricing.)

It’s a dishonest and exploitative practice, and wouldn’t surprise me that with just a few poorly selected datapoints (and with ML, every data point is poorly selected) discriminatory.

Surge pricing might not be price discrimination in the strictest sense, it’s still shitty.

...will this actually benefit the employees?

That makes them untrustworthy. I won't touch any fast food any more, but I would stop going completely based on this alone. I don't support criminal behavior. The lack of deterministic fair pricing is criminal behavior.

Non deterministic pricing is going to open them up to lawsuits and defeat anything they make in the interm. There will be diversity shifts that mirror their pricing changes that will easily show prejudice.

I don’t eat Wendy’s (or really any fast food anymore), but FUCK WENDY’S. Late stage capitalism fucking sucks.

I won't have to worry about surge pricing from the Windy's down the street from me. They're always dead and I'm amazed it's open. A "Rush" would have to qualify as more than 2 cars in the drive through lmao

I bet they wont, or they try it and then back-peddle when their stores see a 15% reduction in sales

Dave is ordering Molotov Cocktails, you say?

TIL Wendy's is still a thing.

For nostalgia's sake (I worked there for a couple of years), I like to have a little Wendy's when I'm back in the US (they sold/merged their Japan business with another company. No frosty here). Not going to happen ever again if they do this shit.

Another place to avoid.

I've been to wendy's a handful of times (I don't eat much fast food in general). Thanks to this news, I'll never consider there again.

It’s been many many years since I’ve last eaten at Wendy’s. Not sure why I’d start now.

Isn't this just a badly branded happy hour?

i stopped going there when they switched to plastic cups

Haven’t been there in at least 15 years now that I think about it

I struggle to understand the people who are angry about this one. I'm not saying it's a good business move, but it's not like it hurts the general population

With fast food, you're already paying a premium to get prepared food on demand. The people who can't or don't want to afford it can avoid the premium pricing by planning ahead and packing lunches from home.

This is basic supply and demand economics at this point. If prices go up, demand will go down as people move to other restaurants that are cheaper, or stick with groceries.

Now if it was a grocery store doing this, I would feel differently. But fast food is not a basic human need.

So long, and thanks for all the fish sticks

Its not what they said. They said they are rolling out dynamic display boards. Don't trust shitty reporters