I don't see anyone mentioning the proportions of the bars. For example, on the 1st item, $1 vs $2.99 is not even double the size...
At first, I was assaulted by the percentage representation. Then I cooled down and thought, it’s not the percentage, but those bars are the absolute height of the price! Me smart, until I took a look again and now my hate is burning so, so hard for this graph. It is designed to enrage.
They’re not. The $3 bar is not 3x the height of the $1 bar next to it. The $2.99 bar on the right is higher than the $2.99 bar on the left. Someone just free drew the bars and it’s extremely noticeable and annoying.
The graph itself's utter lack of proportion is more infuriating than the content.
I don't always ruin my graphs, but when i do it's to advertise for the company the graph is dumping on
Prices have gone up while portions, service, and even quality (as low as it already was) have gone down. When does "the free market" start improving things for customers instead of just shareholders?
According to economic theory, "when price exceeds value."
"Perceived value"
Without that element, there would be no explanation for Marketing other than pure Brand Awareness promotion working (and McDonalds is definitely beyond needing more Brand Awareness, at least in the Developed World)
Even then, it doesn't explain a lot of how Marketing does its work (namelly the stuff they took from Psychology and use to do things like create associations between brand and specific feelings on people's subconscious - you know, the way cars are "freedom" and perfumes are "sex").
And don't get me started on other techniques that prey of human cognitive weaknesses (for example, FOMO would not work with the fabled Homo Economicus that underpins so much of Free Market Theory)
Anyways, a ton of present day enshittification (and that includes this kind of price inflation) relies on people having a well entrenched positive perception of a brand after years of having a relationship with it (i.e. chosing it as customers) and there being quite a lot of momentum behind it. It also relies a lot on using a "slow boiling" effect to keep people from spotting the full picture of the changes.
Apparently quite a few people have a high tolerance for what they value.
Did the quality really go down? I don't go to McDonald's very often but I think the quality has improved a lot from what I remember it being in the 2000s/2010s. It's still mostly unhealthy slop, but sometimes that's exactly what you need.
Granted, I'm in Germany; I can't speak for any other country's locations
Majority of McDonalds locations are franchised so quality varies widely.
Quality of food is determined by McDonald's as they control the supply chain. Quality of prep vary by location
Somehow I don't think you're getting a McAloo Tikki Burger, or a Spicy Paneer Wrap outside of India McDonald's.
Their menu definitely changes depending on the country.
Germany has regulations for food that are much more demanding than those of the US, so there isn't much that fast food restaurants can do to cut costs in Germany aside from the order touchscreens and such.
Excerpt about additives:
Believe it or not, big name food brands often adjust their ingredients in European countries compared to their products released in the United States. Certain ingredients that are illegal in Europe are still allowed, and commonly used, in the United States. The following eight common ingredients are approved in the U.S. but banned by the European Union or select European states.
rBGH (rBST)
Ractopamine
Potassium bromate (bromated flour)
Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)
Olestra
Azodicarbonamide
Coloring agents (Red #40, Yellow #6, Yellow #5, and Blue #1)
BHA and BHT
And these additive ingredients expand past the EU into the United Kingdom. For example, the American version of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is entirely different from Kraft’s “Cheesey Pasta” sold in Great Britain. Take a look at the differences below.
Everyone knows that McDonald's don't degrade over time. You can put one in its original bag in the closet for a number of years without problems.
Shame on you for not buying in bulk when the price was more amenable. Get down to your local McDonald's now and buy yourself at least 57 Big Macs which I've calculated to be the optimal amount until global warming renders this planet a cinder. And get me a chocolate milkshake while you're at it, please.
Prices fit for a billionaire who wears depends
I gave up on McDonalds. I can get better food elsewhere for half the price. Their trash was ok for pushing a turd, but not for what they charge today.
Stop buying shitty, overpriced food from a dumpster organization.
If you stop buying it, you'll help signal to the dumpster organization that their prices are too high.
It has been suggested that's part of the reason for the price surge. A lot of people just aren't buying from McDumpster anymore and so in order to hit the same levels of year over year profit increase they've raised their prices to make up for lost sales. So they have significantly fewer people paying significantly more money for the same shitty food. Ultimately this will lead to a death spiral, but they're so massive it's going to take a really really long time before they hit the bottom.
But here’s the really annoying thing about McDonald’s: they don’t care if their sales trend towards zero. McDonald’s makes all their money on the real estate values of their restaurants, not on food sales.
Sooooo, stop eating there? It’s expensive enough bowing to the grocery cartels, who can afford to eat out?
God I wish that plane went down
McDoubles were $1 many places until 2016 or later. My standard McD meal for years was 3 McDoubles for $3. After that they raised McDoubles to closer to $2 but the McTriple was also about $2 so I switched to 2 McTriples for $4.
Now the only way to get a decent price meal is to use the app and I refuse to use the app. Now and then they’ll have a 2/$6 deal but it still feels overpriced.
I don’t eat there so the jokes on them!
The graph is fucked btw. Read the values its different than the bars. Also a gaph like this should set the starting point for everything on the same level and only show the change not how much it changed by. You could put a car on this graph and shiw how its price increased by 100$ which would blow out all the other data even though its price only changed by 1% for example.
At this point, you’re better off going for the lunch specials at an asian restaurant. Same price, more filling, and less unhealthy.
I found a bakery in town that does subs. You can get a brisket sub for the same price as subway with fresh bread and ingredients and the bread is wider than the skinny subway loaves so you get more overall
I'm surprised they are not all 200%, didn't the money supply double in that time period?
I was just talking about this with a friend the other day, but it's really not worth it to go to these fast food places anymore even if you do like the food. I remember when, speaking to my friend, we would go to BK in high school and get a couple of "buck doubles", because Burger King used to run a promotion where you could get two double cheeseburgers for two dollars. It was honestly a great deal. Then the shrinkflation kicked in and over time the size of the food became smaller and smaller. Then, the actual currency inflation hit, and fast food companies used the increased price of beef, chicken and other such ingredients as an excuse to gouge the hell out of their prices. Now, if I were to go to BK and get my usual fare, I would be lucky to leave paying less than $16. For like, $4 extra (not including tip) I could go to the Chili's across the street and get an actual restaurant quality burger, and a side, and a beverage and be more than satisfied.
These fast food places are completely off their rocker if they think these prices are reasonable. Inflation is going down, so we as consumers need to stop buying their shit so they can't justify keeping prices so insanely high. McDonalds and other fast food places are the biggest bulk purchaser of raw ingredients, so you bet that they have an insane amount of negotiating power to convince farmers and ranchers to supply the stuff they need for below market rate in bulk quantities.
If you are really craving that unique fast food flavor that you can only get at your favorite chain, let me tell you, there are YouTube channels with copycat recipes that can be made quicker and cheaper than the time it takes to drive to the nearest chain location, order, pay, get your food, leave, and come back to your house to eat it. And they taste almost the same or better in most cases because you make it yourself so you can add as much of the flavorful stuff as you want.
Kind of crazy that I can get a large pizza and a 2 liter from Pizza Hut for the cost of a single meal at Jack in the Box.
Not Worth it their food is not very good anyways its average.
And McDonald's countered with a statement Pricing Myths vs Facts where they compared 2019-2024 prices where the original study the infographic is based on compared 2014-2024 prices. A little FUD seasoning if your will to make it all look less bad.
That's the same company that countered their wages being too low to live on by producing an example budget to show how you can survive with only a McDonald's job. The first line in the budget is income from the first and second job. They costs are even more laughable today.
Good! People should not eat that crap. It’s hardly food.
The two inflation calculators that I found said that a dollar in 2014 should be worth $1.33 in 2025. That’s significantly lower than the lowest price increase in this infographic.
If this was just McDonalds, shouldn't there be a Burger King that didn't raise prices to try to gain back market share?
And if this was all fast food joints, is there a common reason besides greed that it happened? If it was just greed, you would think one of their competitors could WALMART (lower prices until competition dies) them.
Because they aren't competing in the way free market ideologists say they should. It generally takes a 200 level economics class less than a day to figure out a price cartel is far better for the companies involved. I'm sure the professionals have their back channels and third party price consultants already figured out.
They can surge all they like. Our family just stopped buying from them (and most fast food places).
It's not a time saver to sit in a drive thru instead of making something for meals at home.
I haven't eaten "fast" "food" in basically forever. It's been decades. Unless 2010-ish Subway counts, and that was only consumed b/c I was driving cross-country and one whole sub was a day's eats that I could stash as-needed.
These prices blow my mind. I can't believe that people are paying so much for so little, and for crappy fried heart-attack and diabetes fare too. I can eat for a day for the price of one of these "burgers" (or "meals" - just because there's more than one item in the bag doesn't make it a "meal" no matter how much the marketers use the term). For the price of a "quarter pounder" here, I can get at least three big cans of "chunky"-style soup, each of which is a meal in itself - all you need is a bowl and a microwave and a spoon and a few minutes to heat. For the price of that burger I can (and do) get 3-4 boxes of cereal at Walmart, each of which will, along with a little milk in a bowl, provide a week's-worth of breakfasts.
Frozen veggies, basics from the Winco bulk aisles, a bit of dairy maybe, a little spice, and maybe a worn, curled recipe book you got from the used bookstore (or not, if you already have the intuition for cooking) and you can eat incredibly cheaply (and well, if you're careful) in the US. No need to fill your body with expensive McShit just because the ads tell you to and justify your doing it. Everything changes if you're already homeless of course, that's gonna cost you, but just be aware that McEating is going to get you to that state of being all the sooner.
I think that people eating all this McShit and justifying it as some kind of necessity ("too busy shop and cook!") are just addicted to sugar/fat/salt/industrial-chemicals and who demand "treats" of such things each and every goddamn day (vs maybe once every few weeks 40 yrs ago) because that's what they "deserve". I understand, a treat is all you can aspire to, you're never going to buy a house or have a decent job, but blowing what little $ you have on ruining your health and mobility and sanity doesn't seem to me like it's going to help get more out of life. No more than a daily 12-pack of McBeer would, and for that you wouldn't have to wait in line.
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