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Comment by kube-system | Hacker News Reader

McDonalds is financially quite healthy. They've never been the cheapest nor the best quality. McDonalds excels in having food at the right place at the right time and a minimal effort to transact.

If you are traveling at any random place in the US, and you are in a hurry and want something you are familiar with, McDonalds is the most likely thing you will come across first. There is a huge cognitive anchoring this has.

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Don't forget consistency - you can get chicken nuggets and barbecue sauce and french fries that taste recognizably the same at any of their 42,000 restaurants. The food preparation and storage, shipping logistics, and other underpinnings of their consistency trick are admirable, even if the other issues with fast food detract from the overall picture.

That's what I was hinting at "something you are familiar with" and "effort to transact". People hopping off the highway for a quick stop with their family don't want to mull over SlopBowl's menu for 10 minutes, even if it's better quality... they know if they roll into a McD, they can grab a happy meal and the kid won't complain.

But a strawberry shake in the US tastes horrible to those used to the DE version.

Back before teh interwebz consistency was the key to other successful nationwide chains like Howard Johnson's and Holiday Inn.

my friend, people just recently died for eating mcdonalds.

They're rapidly burning part of their core value proposition for finances. They are increasing transaction friction, via much higher store prices and requirement to use their app, forcing use of touchscreen ordering, etc.

Boeing appeared quite financially healthy in summer 2018 as well.

I'm not sure that having a franchise fall out of the sky would be so harmful to McDonalds though.

At all the McDonald's I've been to recently, you can still walk in with cash, give your order to a human, and walk out with a bag of food. You don't have to use the app. You don't have to use the touchscreens.

But you often have to wait 10 minutes for someone to show up at the cash register or to let you beg for a refill

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/12/business/mcdonalds-self-serve...

> If you are traveling at any random place in the US

And not only in the US. McDonald's is big in some European countries like France. In small towns, McDonald's may be the only option available past a certain hour.

My relationship with the company has evolved though. When we were teenagers, we loved McDonald's. It was also not available everywhere and quite novel, so we would sometimes drive a long way with my mom just to go there. Nowadays, I'm much more concern about my health so it's really one of the last option I'd consider. It feels they have become dirtier than what they used to be though, but maybe that's subjective.

I basically never eat at McDonald's personally but I expect a lot of people just default to it as the predictable option that isn't too bad for their tastes and doesn't cost too much.

We end up there maybe 6 times a year now that we have kids. It's the correct option when we're on a road trip. Like another commenter said, it's consistency is a huge selling point and kids will never say no to a Happy Meal.

You don't have a lot of options at interstate service plazas. Yeah, I'll grab some fries at a McDonalds or a Burger King maybe a few times a year if I'm driving and hungry. Depending upon where I am I may go to a more local place I know but it takes more time.

Perhaps, but a lot of these arguments have been used for Starbucks, where it seems like their relentless streamlining and price increases have been catching up with them.

McD's has been on a similar path, and have reintroduced $5 meal deals in an attempt to bring customers that have been priced out back.

In my country just a hamburger is 5 euro. Poor people cook their own food- it's the supermarket that operates at a 2-3% margin.

Taco Bell: Te parezco un chiste?

Taco bell has significantly fewer locations, it's less likely that your next exit has one.

Out of curiosity, apparently US totals are Subway 20k, Starbucks 15k, McD's 13k, Dunkin 9k, Taco Bell / Burger King 7k, Dominos / Pizza Hut / Wendy's 6k, then others.

Subway is a good reminder that location matters too. While they have a lot of locations, they are not nearly as selective in where they go.

Subway is also an optimization in franchise virality and typically doesn't own its own real estate.

I.e. they will let you open a Subway franchise today and me another one across the street tomorrow.

Also something of an exercise in my experience of how bad sandwich franchises can be.

It's interesting watching the cycle of startup -> optimization for customer value -> brand buyout -> optimization for profit.

F.ex. Blimpie (MTY 2016), Jimmy Johns (Roark 2016), Firehouse Sub (RBI 2021), Subway (Roark 2023), Jersey Mike's (Blackstone 2024)

Subway's really the only one of those I have any personal experience with. But from my perspective it's pretty much long been awful.

I remember Subway being somewhat better in the mid-90s. Still not great, but better. E.g. tomatoes were actually ripe

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