Comment by xp84 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xp84 | Hacker News Reader

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I've seen the same changes. The most noticeable is, now that they are no longer required to be visible at the front counter in case someone comes in to order, because of kiosks, the workers usually specifically hide anywhere else, to minimize the chances of being disturbed by customers with their endless requests ("I've been waiting for 15 minutes for a large fry...")

Don't underestimate the equally intense downward pressure on staffing that minimum-wage hikes have provided (for instance, in California). I won't speculate if it's been "worth it" since it'll devolve into an off-topic political debate, but basic economics does predict that since labor costs twice what it did 10 years ago, they'll do everything to minimize how much labor they buy. Couple that with what you said, basically, using "Moneyball" techniques to finesse everything with all these optimizations, we get the operations we see now in all retail establishments.

And even if there are states that haven't done the minimum wage changes, the markets that have are so big. The national businesses that have adapted to it have proven out their barebones-labor model there - why wouldn't they roll out most of the changes nationwide?

I think if someone launched a fast-food place or a drugstore in 1995 that operates with the type of skeleton crew they use today, it would fail overnight due to people having a choice. But today, since essentially 100% of retail operates this same way, they don't experience any pressure to do better.

> Don't underestimate the equally intense downward pressure on staffing that minimum-wage hikes have provided (for instance, in California).

In-N-Out allows us to discard this notion. They've maintained full staffing while simultaneously paying staff above-market rates (even in California). They only charge 30 cents more for a basic cheeseburger, and the burger is much higher quality, so even that is hard to attribute to wages.

In-n-out not only has high wages, they’re staffed to the nines. I’m talking 20-25 employees during rush time. You don’t see some, because they’re in the back peeling potatoes for dinner rush 6 hours later.

In-N-Out is, IIRC, completely privately owned by the founder's family. Every location is directly controlled. Their customers are the people buying burgers.

McDonalds, of course, is 5% corp-owned flagships and 95% franchise "opportunities". They don't have customers, they have tenant farmers who work the land leased to them.

Maybe we should start to question how good idea this whole thing of other companies operating under brands of others really is for all of us. Franchises might make money. Or they won't... It is still pretty large rentier cut... Still nothing compared to things like taxis of Uber or Lyft or food delivery... And then the whole Amazon package delivery...

So many parties either directly exploiting others or being able to do it by taking significant cuts of revenue for questionable value...

In-N-Out may have a lot of staff but my experience is that they are extraordinarily slow for "fast food", and this was before the pandemic. They would never meet the metrics of other chains. Arguably, they have always been understaffed.

I sometimes have the urge to go to an In-N-Out, but the drive through line loops through their own parking lot and into the one next door. There are people standing outside the restaurant because the indoor dining line extends past the doors. I don't really want to sit in my car or stand in line for 30 minutes.

I used to go to In-N-Out weekly when I worked a late shift; the line after midnight is much shorter.

In-N-Out is a low-margin, high-volume business, kind of like how Walmart is.

They literally can't cut staff because they only make money due to the incredibly high number of meals they serve per hour. So they have to serve as efficiently as possible, which requires that fully-staffed kitchen and counter, or there wouldn't be enough time in the mealtime hours to do that volume otherwise. It's just as impossible for them to cut any staff as an airline could remove pilots from the cockpit, in that the whole operation would cease to function.

McDonald's and the rest are never going to be In-N-Out though because it would take years of operating at steep losses in the hopes people would notice how fast and tasty they'd become. I can't think of a mature company that's ever pulled off going from "boring mainstream place" to "cult favorite" like that.

McDonalds was that and more first. They established the template that In-N-Out continues to follow, as anyone older than ~30 remembers.

McDonalds chose to aggressively enshittify, In-N-Out did not. You're probably right that McDonalds will never be that again, I don't think they even want to. If you cut minimum wage in half today, they'd keep the same staffing levels and the franchise owners would pocket the difference.

We agree mostly. I'm sure they would never "give back" the labor spend they've already 'learned to live without.' Though if you cut minimum wage, it'd suddenly become possible for a new entrant to open a restaurant that would embarrass them, by having twice the staff while holding other things similar. Today that's impossible to do without losing a ton of money, so the current businesses are protected from competition (other than from those "cult" type of place like In-N-N-Out. But how much more business can McDonald's really lose to In-N-Out, since they're basically running at capacity).

Stats tell me the bigmac price in Denmark is in average about 7$ and in the US about 6$, while their average employee hourly pay about 23$ in DK versus 13$ in the US. I don't think the minimum wage and labor costs and whatnot explains it, change my mind.

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