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- cross-posted to:
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McDonald’s has been using artificial intelligence to dynamically price menu items in the US and some global markets, according to a report by Reuters. This involves finding the “optimal price” to match what a particular store’s patrons would be willing to pay.
This fluctuates according to location, and even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items, according to information reviewed by Reuters. This is basically surge pricing, like with ride-share platforms, but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.
Reuters got a look at the interface that franchisees use to access this technology and it’s pretty creepy. Messages show stuff like “your restaurant is showing MEDIUM SENSITIVITY to price” based on “customer willingness to pay in your area.” Cost differences at nearby locations can be stark. Researchers found that a Bic Mac at a Fresno, California store cost $5.69, but the same burger cost $6.89 at another branch two miles down the road. That’s a 21 percent difference.
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Thank god, finally I’ll get cheaper burgers I’m sure!
Can’t fucking remember when I went there last. It’s just bullshit now.
Choose zero:
Good
Fast
Cheap
Someone’s about to enter the find out phase of their fuckery
This takes “what the market will bear” to a new level. I haven’t been to McDonald’s in years and now I have even less reason to go.
They did this before, its just that they are using “AI” now. Probably not an LLM but it would be funny if it is.
Some C suite just earned a billion dollars.
Convinve the AI to give a negative price.
Stop using their “Rewards app” It’s tracking your purchases, which’ll inform their surveillance and skew the boards.
How do I manipulate it to lowball
There should be quotes around “burgers” in this headline as well IMO.
The text is pretty good though:
[…] but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.
And soon someone will have the “Where is The Cheapest” mcdonalds app that guides them to the location that is hurting for business and has lowered their price, effectively negating the process.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with McDonalds doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap. I had gone probably decades without going into one, but happened to on a road trip. Big ugly kiosks? Nope. I left.
I can’t see how this could be illegal. They should be able to adjust their prices any time they want. Well except after you order I guess.
Gathering data about the customers that persists, is personally identifiable, and not discoverable, now THAT should be illegal.
I don’t see a problem with McDonald’s doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap
Okay, great, this specific case doesn’t apply to you. Thank goodness no other business will be encouraged to adopt this model and suddenly make groceries more expensive during the post-work/pre-dinner rush and on weekends.
I don’t care if they do, frankly.
Restaurants already do this: Lunch is one price, Happy Hour another, Dinner another, and then late night often yet another menu.
A business can charge whatever they want, and hopefully it will empower more food coops and consumer owned businesses.
Edit: Most of the places I like to go to, I know who works there, I know who owns it.
I wonder if touristy places will eventually get facial recognition, so that prices are much higher for tourists?
Which leads me to the part that actually bothers me, the data collection and identification. Its not the pricing itself that bothers me, its the data required to do it.
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing. We have menu’s because some food is more expensive than others. 2 eggs and some hash browns costs less then a hamburger with full dressings, fries and a soft drink.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
Now if that example above seems fine with you, change out the skin color and clothing type to something stereotypically negative and then tell me it’s not prejudice for someone to base a business transaction on those attributes (which the Supreme Court has in the past ruled is illegal to do.)
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing
Yes it is. Less people at lunch. More people at dinner. Less people at 4 - 6 in between. They all are different prices reflecting the different number of people that time will attract. It isn’t simply what the food is made of.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
I guess that’s one way to look at it. I would imagine most use cases would be: “this person is from Extremely Rich Estates”, so lets tack on an extra $10 to their order. Or this person wants their order first, so charge a premium. Welcome to tipping the bartender hard to get noticed (also dynamic pricing is it not?)
I don’t get why you want to negatively use dynamic pricing, that seems counter productive to making money, but whatever. (EDIT: I will acknowledge that fast food can be an addiction or a bad habit, and I definitely can see a company preying on that).
People in business do it all the time already: I get jobs I don’t want to do, I ask for a lot to do it. I get a job that I know will lead to more jobs, I charge less. I get a job for a wealthy person I charge more so I can do work on the cheap for someone who needs it.
Look at the end of the day I think I have been clear: its the data collection that bothers me the most. Which fits into your argument, I don’t want any personal identifiable information, or race, or address, or location, etc collected. Period. For any damn reason. THAT is what needs to be illegal. If they want to say more people come in at lunch, and the longer the line gets the more they want to charge, fine.
On the plus side, surveillance pricing legislation has already been introduced in (IIRC) four states just this year, and if I had to guess, we could eventually see state-level bans in at least half of the states.
This, like the electronic tags at Walmart, or Uber charging more when your phone battery is low, or Target mining your loyalty club data to surge price you, is something that they’re speedrunning to try and normalize before the law catches up.
The issue is that these are black boxes. No one but the authors of the system know what’s happening. Law prevents Uber from increasing the price on a nearly flat mobile-computer? They didn’t. That’s just the normal price. Who has all the data? Only Uber. No one else. How then can you enforce such laws?
Only allow flatrate pricing per distance and time?
No government is going to enforce a universal flat-rate. However that doesn’t prevent what I’m talking about. Uber can give everyone a different flat-rate. How would you know? You wouldn’t. That’s the problem. A friend gets charged a different flat-rate? Ok, now you know, but when the government goes to investigate Uber says, “well the flat-rate had to increase. It’s now XXX.” Again, the imbalance is enormous between the businesses that have the data and any external regulatory body that has to do footwork to get any data.
The same item sells for two different prices at separate stores? “Oh, that store just had a sale.”
Except you know, all the cities that already do for taxis, which is what Uber is, regardless of how it tries to skirt around it. Get a taxi, the rate is literally posted on the side of the vehicle. Yes, taxis certainly have their own issues, but it’s a sure whole lot more honest than Uber pricing, and that’s the bottom of the barrel.
Yep. I’ve been saying for years that if ubers were regulated like taxis, they would cost the same amount as taxis, and the company would have no reason to exist. It’s not about using new tech to provide new services, it’s about using new tech to skirt regulation—and also the regulations existed for great reasons, and we get to rediscover why.
Dynamic pricing nudges the price to the maximum a customer can afford which temporarily maximises profits but creates in the mind of the customer a feeling of being relentlessly over charged and eventually and long-term they won’t come back.
I don’t like vendors who think they can take advantage of me for a few extra bucks because of what they see (isn’t that a form of prejudice?)
Same with haggles at flea markets or garage sales. If you don’t label your prices I’m immediately not interested. I’m a demographic that looks “put together” and thus “wealthy” when in reality I’m basically broke and would file for bankruptcy if it’d clear my debt.
So when I come across a haggler (usually an old guy or a foreigner from a country that has a culture of haggling) I tend to avoid them because I don’t enjoy that process. Thats why America came up with price tags and fixed pricing for stuff. Way less hassle. Only idiots really savor the process of haggling. It sucks.
Only idiots really savor the process
Strong “I don’t like a thing, therefore nobody should” vibes there buddy…
Cool. Glad I’m on an opinion forum and not a member of a legislative body that makes laws that apply to everyone.
Opinion and insulting other people are not the same thing.
Yet another reason to avoid McDonald’s, as if the lousy food wasn’t enough.
Food like product
It cracks me up to see all the people boycotting McDonalds over this nonsense, then they go watch AI slop on YouTube for hours.
It’s weird that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but honestly whatever: if fewer people are supporting that horrible chain, I’ll consider it a win regardless of their motivation.
I will continue to avoid McDonald’s. Not going to break a no-meat streak for a shitty burger.
