alt-text: Woman ordering food (photo): “I would like to buy a hamburger for the same price that it was 2 hours ago.”
Cashier (sketched): “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”
Watch me predict the future: There will be sites/apps that monitor prices so you can order at the least expensive times.
The restaurant chains will sue those sites/apps.
Kinda reminds me of the GasBuddy app that informs customers of varying gas prices in their area, and of course GasBuddy realized how much power they were weilding with this app, and has sold its soul to the devil and now incorporates customer psychological manipulation & data mining into the app.
There’s an altruistic future I could envision where this software goes towards selling burgers for cheap to lower-income people coming in at odd times, in order to avoid food waste where the burgers get thrown out. Similarly, nice restaurant owners do this the simple way: Low prices for good food, always. But, I definitely don’t trust chains like Wendy’s with this.
maybe some day someone will implement hamburger futures
Steps to creating your own “Bullish Burger” Stock Market
- Bulk order just before peak,
- Resell those orders as demand rises.
- Profit
that might not be entierly legal,
you cant legally sell onions on the futures market since 1958Huh, son of a bitch. Can’t wait to use this one
The Onion Futures Act is a United States law banning the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as “motion picture box office receipts”
Lol. Wut?
in 1956 some guy sneakily trough shell companys and such stuff, used the futures market to controll 98% of the onion suply and screwed over a lot of people.
the onion futures act was the goverments absolute brilliant idea for a fix.
i have no idea what the box office receipts thing is about
Yeah no, I get the Onion thing, it’s usually taught in collegiate finance courses… but the Box Office thing threw me off. Apparently the MPAA lobbied to have it added. I am just amused that it’s attached to Onion Law.
So what happens if the price changes while you’re waiting in line? Will they post the prices to the last car in line or do you have to wait till you get up to order. What about drive throughs that don’t have enough space for someone to get out of line? Are they gonna try to guilt people into paying whatever price they’re given?
Yes they will guilt you. The McDonald’s in my town has it so you can’t get out of line once you reach the signs with the prices. If you don’t have it memorized and realize you can’t afford it… well sucks to be you
I actually like Wendy’s, but if they implement this at my local store I’m boycotting. The cost for you to make the food per item doesn’t fucking change if there’s 1 person in line or 100, just the wait time. It’s pure profiteering.
The effort the employee has to put forth to meet demand changes during a rush, not that they will see a penny of the higher revenue they are directly responsible for generating.
It changes in that there are economies of scale involved. It actually becomes cheaper and more efficient for the company to make 20 cheeseburgers at once than just one. That’s why this surge pricing thing is a joke. Would the company really like to introduce friction to customers buying more food?
I’ll just demand everything be made to order and be fresh. I encourage everyone to do the same and tank their numbers. If they’re going to charge extra during peak hours then you bet your ass I’m demanding fries fresh out of the frier and burgers right off the grill. I can wait 3 minutes for the fries.
That’s how you end up with spit in your burger.
Only way I can make any sense of it is to try balance the day. Get more business on quiet time, and less on rush hour. But I don’t get how it would make any sense from the business perspective since usually you’d want to optimize for the rush hour, not push customers away with higher pricing
Because people just show up at rush hour for shits and giggles, and not because that’s their non-negotiable lunch break or their trip home. This is a stupid move.
But are they paying the employee more?
What happens? They change the prices throughout the day?
They announced they will be switching to surge pricing. If there are a lot of people trying to get burgers, they’ll increase the price of burgers.
But will the employees see surge pay for handling so many customers at once?
LOL!
No, but the floggings will increase.
I mean, I don’t think the entire concept is flawed. I want to wait and see what it actually means - especially if it’s cheaper to grab food outside of surge hours.
I understand it likely won’t be, but I won’t damn them until we have more information.
especially if it’s cheaper to grab food outside of surge hours.
you really don’t understand how corporations work, do you.
It’s not impossible.
It’s not probable, but why not wait to damn them?
Because in the last 5,000 price hikes there has never been a decrease in pricing. There’s a bit of a trend. Corps are always guilty until proven innocent. Hint: they’re never innocent.
because there’s no need to wait, corporations are predictable… it does not matter how much they say they care about quality or the consumer. they will fuck over every single person on the planet at a moment’s notice if it means 0.15% additional profit.
