I've been scratching my head for the last day and a half wondering how the McDonald's drive-thru near me is always packed. Your comment is illuminating to me because I didn't know that I needed a McApp to get McDonald's prices, though I am not at all surprised.
The trick to McDonalds has, for a long time, been that the value meals are any thing but a value and to buy exclusively from the dollar menu. If you do that you will be hard pressed to find anything cheaper.
It's a kind of price discrimination tactic—people willing to clip coupons or use the company's app might pay 1/3 or less the menu price, and those who aren't, pay the full (and crazy-high) menu price.
Like, yes, coupon shopping has always been a thing, but not like this, because the normal menu prices used to already be pretty good. They're super expensive now, but if you burn some time, they'll give you a really good price, consistently, pretty much any time you want it.
[EDIT] More generally, I just prefer my commerce to be fairly straightforward. I don't like having to second-guess whether there are hidden tricks going on to screw me.
It is entirely bad. It arrogates consumer surplus to the supplier. The people paying higher prices don’t subsidise those paying lower prices, the supplier pockets most of the gains. They’d like you to believe that the people paying cheaper prices are subsidised, but they’re not selling to them at a loss. And it causes a deadweight efficiency loss.
The fact that businesses can pass this off as some kind of progressive pricing and good for the consumer makes it as disingenuous as it is pernicious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus
I installed the app to take a look. My local McDonalds, in Orange county, through the app, has the Big Mac meal for $9.19.
And if you're super friendly with the little old Mexican lady who works there, she'll sneak free pies into your bag too.
This 'pays off', in that I have my default choice, and can choose to use any of the other apps when there's some combination of coupons and deals to be had that make it feel worth it.
Yesterday, I used a "$15 off $22" coupon(for some reason, they gave me two, and I plan to use the other this weekend), combined with two bogo deals from an instance of a small chain restaurant, and paid $20 delivered(fair tip included) for what would have been at least $30 had I driven over and ordered in person, since both deals were only available on the app. As a bachelor, it's enough food to count as dinner for at least 2 days in a row.
I don't know how $COUPON_GIVING_APP can make money while footing that kind of coupon deal, but hey, I'd be dumb to not make use of it if I was already looking to spend some money.
There was also a promotion only on $COUPON_GIVING_APP from Wendy's for a free sandwich of theirs, so long as cart subtotal was at least $15. The discounted sandwich counted towards that, and I ended up feeling very fat and happy with a price of $12 delivered.
Locally they did recently drop their long-time $1 any-size soft drink but it seems to be back now after a few weeks.
"Bebidas $1 Cualquier Tamaño"