Yes I saw some shit the other day about, “such and such reporting that sales are drastically down since blah blah blah. Where did it all go wrong?”
Or “Gen whatever is choosing to part ways with blah blah blah. Here’s our guesses as to why!”
And it’s just, NOBODY HAS FUCKING MONEY!!! That’s it. That’s all it is. There’s no preference. There’s no secret wokeness. There’s no underlying meaning. We are all just fucking broke!
They took all the money, they refuse to give it back in wages, they jacked up the price, and we are tapping out. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STILL A GODDAMN MYSTERY?!?!?!
The only way someone can still be confused about what’s going on is if they’re on purpose being ignorant about it because, “mah market indicators!”
We are all broke. That’s it, that’s the answer. Media needs to stop with the bullshit. The headline every day needs to be “The world is on fire by rich asshats and the rest of us are too fucking broke to do anything. We are all going to die painfully because of those rich asshats.” And that should be all that’s on the news every hour on the hour. The end.
Media needs to stop with the bullshit. The headline every day needs to be “The world is on fire by rich asshats and the rest of us are too fucking broke to do anything.
Who do you think owns the media?
The funniest headline I saw the other day was "millenials ditching the guest bedroom". No asshole, they just can't afford it, provided they could even afford a house at all.
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STILL A GODDAMN MYSTERY?!?!?!
You need to understand that the media is not your friend. They aren't legitimately curious, they aren't truth seekers. They are the propaganda machine at its finest.
I ate at McDonald's for the first time in a few years. The same meal I used to get on the go now costs over 100% more since before 2020. The only reason I went to McDonald's was because it was cheap, not because it was good. I don't think I'll ever go again.
I literally don't believe American fast food prices and second every point you've made.
The part people keep missing with all their "I don't even eat there so I don't care" and "fine, I'll go somewhere else" comments is that every other large chain will be watching this little experiment very, very closely.
People are still going to go to Wendy's. Any boycott is unlikely to make a dent. If this is profitable, watch this become commonplace. I don't even live in the states and this concerns me.
Enshitification may well extend itself to the hospitality sector.
People are still going to go to Wendy's.
No they won't. As soon as they are aware the price fluctuates they'll go somewhere else. Wendy's competitors will be watching this to see how many more customers they receive during Wendy's "surge pricing" hours.
Uber "gets away with it" by saying they have a limited number of drivers, and you can always see the price on your phone. Nobody is going to go to a Wendy's if they don't know what the prices are going to be.
The part people keep missing with all their “I don’t even eat there so I don’t care” and “fine, I’ll go somewhere else” comments is that every other large chain will be watching this little experiment very, very closely.
So... locally owned businesses about to get a shot in the arm? That's already what we've done. Why pay fifteen bucks for a burger fries and drink from McD when I can get a bigger burger with better beef (cooked FOR ME), better fries, and the same soda carryout from a local pub for about the same or even a little less? I can also go to the local steak sandwich place and get freshly made cheesesteak with fries and a drink for substantially less. And I've got many more options than that.
Biggest difference is 5 or 10 min in my car waiting for food or going in to pick it up. The moment fast food stopped being a consistently cheaper option, that stopped mattering.
They will usher in a new renaissance of local food places. Sounds like a win win.
I absolutely do fast food for the fast part. Between my 2 jobs I'm often moving from 4:30am to past 10:00 during the week, and I simply don't have the extra 5 minutes to go inside.
I'm actually really enjoying that C-stores are getting better hot food options these days because they're also super fast, and some of them have shockingly good tacos these days.
Rice cookers.
COVID forced me to stay in my house for an extended period of time. I never ventured back out. Businesses are certainly not incentivizing me to do so.
As a result, I've watched my bank account grow at a rate it never has. In a nearly identical upward trend on the graph so have grown my depression and loneliness.
The outside world has become hostile in addition to expensive.
I'm glad I'm old and this is not my whole life ahead of me stage.
There are still good people, friend, anywhere you go. Especially if you do try volunteering as the other commenter suggested, and there are tons and tons of various organizations always looking for good people depending on what your interests are.
If you just want to meet people and have no specific hobbies you can try volunteering at a hospital. Even a few hours once a week or every other week might really help with the loneliness.
try volunteering
If you try to live your life as disconnected from evil megacorps as you can, it's just a natural boycott.
To exist is to resist
Not trying to be clever but I really see it as to resist is to exist.
Otherwise we are subsumed and consumed.
I'm like a stubborn mule. The more you push the more likely I am to push back.
I have had some fast food in the last year, but each time I regret it and it gets longer in between.
For the same price I can order from a real restaurant and have leftovers.
Wait until you learn about cooking at home.
Haha!
I cook most meals at home, restaurants are for when I don't have time or leftovers.
Fast food has surge pricing now?
There was a story going around yesterday about Wendy's supposedly trying it. It sounds like the kind of headline that's going to turn out to be BS, but I also didn't really look into it so I don't know any of the details. Seems like the kind of thing you'd have to be an idiot to actually attempt. Hard to imagine a universe where that goes over well.
Will it go over well?
Of course not!
But will Wendy's keep bullheadedly pushing on until it somehow eventually sticks?
Definitely. 👍
Isn't this just blatant lying on the part of the fast food company? If you have a printed menu with prices on it, you can't just bait and switch like this.
Wendys actually thinks they can treat CHEESEBURGERS like a valuable, limited commodity. I HAVE to buy gasoline because I have no choice. I don't have to buy Wendy's cheeseburgers. I can make my own damn cheeseburgers.
I wonder how long it will be before "Surge prices" become permanent price increases in certain neighborhoods?
People don't like paying premium prices for average or crap food. But they like being exploited even less. Even if Wendys rescinds the surge pricing policy, those customers are never coming back. People will remember that Wendys tried to f*ck them over.
Most fast food places I see these days have screens, digital price displays that can change by the minute.
They're working on that. Wendy's is reportedly replacing all menus with screens.
Wendy's is also investing in upgrading all their restaurants to digital menus by the end of 2025, though.
those fast food restaurants
Has anyone other than Wendy's announced plans to do this?
Probably encompasses at least two Wendy's restaurants
Would you like to know more?
Yes
A good bug is a dead bug!
Good citizen.
I've always said that it's bullshit that those meals were so cheap in the first place. Their lobbyists paid off a bunch of politicians to make it so cheap. It shouldn't have ever been as cheap as it was. That food is terrible for you in every way. It'll probably be good for a lot of people to stop eating it so much. So i see this as a win win.
There’s a documentary “King Corn” that talks about how US government subsidies to farmers for growing corn have made it so inexpensive that it creates a surplus and prices that are too low relative to other foods. This resulted in the proliferation of corn being fed to cattle and other animals, which makes them less healthy to eat but fattens them for slaughter sooner. Also corn syrup is so cheap to make it made soft drinks less expensive. These are large reasons why fast food was so inexpensive and so bad for you. Also surplus corn and corn syrup led to the creation of a lot of unhealthy breakfast cereals which are marketed to kids.
A large part of the reason that corn is so cheap to grow in the US is because of agricultural subsidies. By and large these subsidies get handed out to agricultural mega corporations. What this ends up meaning is that a very small percentage of food crops actually get subsidized.
https://ips-dc.org/we-subsidize-the-wrong-kind-of-agriculture/
Sometimes I get angry that there is nothing legal I can do to cause financial harm for certain companies. The quest that can happen is me stopping the consumption of their products, bit what is I want doing it in the first place?
Yeah I think I like cooking for myself better anyways.
How Wendy's thinks this will play out: 🤑
How it will actually play out:
"WHY DOES THIS BURGER COST 16.99 WHEN IT COST 6 DOLLARS 20 MINUTES AGO?" "Sir, this is a Wendy's" "Oh okay, well fuck you" [drives off]All they need is for enough people to not want to have wasted that time for nothing to buy it anyway to still make more money.
Ohhh! Lemmy is my people. We are small as a group but mighty in spirit. Sometimes I miss my weird little subs at Deadit and o go back and am reminded by the thirty point IQ drop across the board and I content myself to return to Lemmy and see exactly what I needed to see.
Off to the rest of my day.
This one meme satisfies so completely. Except that I may modify it to reflect my decade clean from fast food. Onward!
Rice cookers of the world unite!
This is not something I’ve heard of as someone who also doesn’t bother with fast food. Is this like, higher prices during rush hours or something?
Yep.
Hot take: every business that has a happy hour already has surge pricing and nobody minds because they promote it as offering a discount on the "normal" price.
But Happy Hour is literally the opposite of surge pricing.
Some parts of Canada had an environmental fee on plastic bags introduced a while ago, and some places phrased it as a 10¢ discount for using a reusable/paper bag.
It really seems like my grocery store (a Kroger brand) has been doing this for a bit now.
Prices on certain things vary wildly depending on the time of the month or the day of the week. Plus, with their bullshit, incessant push for everyone to use their app and online ordering, it seems like this will be much more common moving forward.
The app feels like a double dip. Can’t just buy their products, they want your data to sell too
I've been boycotting all fast food chains and almost all big restaurant chains for...12 years now?
I've already been boycotting those places for over a decade for so many reasons.
I actually really like fast food, but I manage my diet pretty closely, so I only have it once a week anyway, and I'd just as soon buy ten frozen burger patties and make the burger myself than pay surge pricing.
I'm not one of the whale customers they're looking for.
Do whales go to Wendy’s?
I think at this point I only ever go to fast food places when a friend who loves fast food places is over and we happen to go get food. Happens maybe once every couple of years.
I think I'm at an age that if I want burgers or barbecue or something unhealthy or greasy is rather make it myself and have it be extra dirty and less expensive.
I only go there if I happen to get a craving for them and am very hungry, which isn't very often. Maybe once every few months.
I live in a small town without any stores. There's a pizza place that makes nice pizza though. We eat pizza from that place ~1-3 times per year.
I dont even remember the last time i was at mcdonalds or similar. its been at least a couple of years..
I think it’s been ten years since I’ve been to a Wendy’s.
Yeah this is mostly me. I eat McDonald’s sometimes but can find alternatives. Or make my own.
This seems like one of those artificial issues that don't really matter to anyone serious. Creating a fake sense of conflict. If anything the entire country is experiencing surge pricing for every fast food restaurant in comparison to other countries
