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 like Wendy's also and this really fucking torques my tacos. Well, fuck them. I'm not going to be ripped off because I choose to eat at a popular time of day.
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.
Do you know what sucks about there being SOOOOOO many people? It's that there's always a certain percentage that are morons and they still go for shit like this, ruining it for everyone else.
I feel like this is one of those memes that in the future historians and sociologists will use to gleam context and the human element to major life periods after the collapse of society as qe know it.
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
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.
Yeah... I was an early adopter of GasBuddy and kept my locals up to date. Made more people use it and it was great for a bit. Then enshittificaiton happened... Big corps pull a bait and switch. Small companies sell out...
Yup. Have to change a setting to see stations that don't have a GasBuddy deal. Such as Costco, which Always has much cheaper prices where I live than anything else.
As long they don't keep the "lowest price" the regular base price, this does have the potential to disrupt fast food purchasing habits. Imagine people always trying to game Wendys to see if they can get the burger cheaper, you'd theoretically see a sine wave develop over a month or so. Then that sine wave would translate laterally as time further progressed and people adapted to the shifting surge pricing. It also has just as much likelihood to ruin Wendy's sales, but time will tell.
The fluxuations will be dampened by the fact people get hungry around 12 and 5. When people are able to buy food (lunch breaks and end of work day) will also limit such fluctuations. Maybe a sine wave will form but there probably isn't enough people with the ability or forsight to try and game the system.
Also, if they start to sell cheaper that what use to be the regular price in off-peak hours, it could attract some people.
As long as they are transparent about which hour you'll find which price, that's not so much a problem for the customer. But transparency is important, I don't want to see the illegitimate son of Wendy's and SNCF pricing algorithm. Never.
I've already long since acquired a severe case of app fatigue to the point that I refuse to order from a place if I'm required to download an app to get whatever price.
Now I'm going to have in person timing fatigue.
You could argue that happy hour is surge pricing already in place, and I suppose that's true, but the perception is that it's a lower price than regular.
Wendy's is presenting this as a higher price than regular.
Like, is this a self-imposed excise tax? Too many people in line! Let's knock the
poors out since our food is unhealthy. (I know that I am conflating an excise tax with capitalist class aggression, but I'm tired, so whatever.)
Not a tax, basically just a price-signal. But maybe also a markeing push since it gets attention by being novel. Its functionally similar to happy hour specials or loss-leaders.
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.
it looks like OP/[whoever made the template] removed the artist's name, but it is SrGrafo. I doubt that the artist would be on lemmy though, considering it's still quite a small platform.
I feel like people are getting a little too up in arms for something that hasn't even happened yet. If it ends up happening, so be it. Let the market decide. There are many of us who will just stop eating at Wendy's but let's face it, the general population will not.