> The McDonald’s-backed company Plexure sells surveillance data on you to vendors, who use it to raise the price of items when they think you’ll pay more.
Finally I understand why when the McDonalds app was introduced it asked for permission to access my contacts. Of course I refused and deleted the app immediately. But to this day whenever I go to the McDonalds drive-thru the first question they ask is "Are you using the app today?"
McDonalds seems to care so much about their app that I wonder if selling personal information makes them more money than selling hamburgers.
They also punish you by charging wildly higher prices without the app. You have to use the app just to get prices around what they "should" be, compared with the pre-app era and adjusting for the broader inflation rate.
Like clearly they're OK with forcing a choice between "use the app" and "never eat McDonalds again", because that's effectively what they're doing, and they have to know it.
There's also the price discrimination angle of it. McDonald's has at least two sizeable groups of customers: people who frequently eat there, and are thus a change in the McDonald's pricing is significant in their total budget, and people who will occasionally eat there.
Presumably, some analyst at McDonald's found that the latter group wasn't particularly price sensitive, so they found a way to divide the two groups, and charge them different prices. The occasional McDonald's customer isn't going to jump through hoops, they just want to roll up, get their burger, and leave. The frequent customer is more likely to respond to changes in pricing in both directions. Having a system to actively prompt the frequent consumers to go more often, and then charge them a price that they are willing to pay, while still getting the full benefit of the people who don't really care how much food costs is a win-win from their perspective.
The surveillance is just a sweetener.
I fall squarely in the second camp, but what ended up happening was that I went from going occasionally, to not going at all.
McDonald's app-free pricing is now butting against actual sit-down restaurants, or a good local shop. I'm not price sensitive per se, but I don't want a raw deal, so I'll pick the better option. McD's used to be cheap and fast, now it's neither really.
Their sales are falling, and they're doing $5 deals now, so I'm definitely not the only one picking other options.
Yeah, they definitely got greedy with it. My go-to example is to point out the fact that In-N-Out used to be the fast food option for when you were willing to pay a few extra bucks to be served a better burger by someone who didn't look like they wanted to kill themselves. Now they're the cheapest option, by a substantial margin, and they didn't change a damn thing.
I always hear this but I've never found this. The couple of times a year I eat McDonald's I check and it's the same. There are specific deals they'll have in the app like "2 filet of fish for $7 instead of $4 each" or something but by and large the prices are the same.
...which is why I don't eat McDonald's. Also, don't forget, the app limits your legal rights as well. No lawsuit or class action for you, bub.
I'm more okay with never eating from what are, by my use anyway, public restrooms than installing some app.
>Finally I understand why when the McDonalds app was introduced it asked for permission to access my contacts
Maybe it did at some point but it's not in the list of permissions on Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mcdonalds....
Interesting. But emails is still there. Wonder what that means.
"Financial information " is on the list...
...I am thinking that does not include payslips....
One good response to that question is "I don't and I never will, sorry", some people think you can only vote with your wallet but that's not true, they really don't like the hostile atmosphere such kind of answers give, so if it became a common answer I bet they would stop asking so directly.
This is such a weird mindset. How much interaction do you think the person hearing your response has with the person in corporate that made them all ask that question?
Being rude or hostile to service people, even just mildly, because of corporate decisions is not only ineffective, but it's also cruel.
Rudeness in hostility is in how you state your position. Having a position (that you dislike and won't participate in a corporate sales funnel is always OK, and it's always OK to politely express that to representatives of the corporation. Even if they happen to be employees of the franchise owner, they're wearing the uniform and promoting the brand, rather than representing 'local burger restaurant.' Of course, you can just not eat there at all (I don't) but in that case no communication is taking place. Many people are OK with McDonalds' food offerings but not with their invasive app marketing.
Trust me, no communication is happening in either situation. Your complaint is not being run up the corporate ladder. All you're doing is making someone's day a bit worse in order to get some fleeting feeling of self-satisfaction for voicing your opinion. You're of course free to be that person, but the rest of us are free to judge you for it.
I do not trust you, because I have been a food service worker and actually know what I'm talking about. A customer expressing a preference has never bothered me if they weren't rude about it. If it happens often enough it does get passed on, even though the individual impact of any counter conversation is low. You are trying to turn normal amicable commercial interactions into some kind of moral purity test.
> I have been a food service worker and actually know what I'm talking about.
Same here.
> A customer expressing a preference has never bothered me if they weren't rude about it.
A lot of people are seemingly skipping over OP describing their behavior as creating a “hostile atmosphere”. That is inherently rude.
> If it happens often enough it does get passed on
But we aren’t talking about just telling your manager. There are so many layers of management and bureaucracy with larger corporations, especially ones with a structure like McDonalds’ franchise model, that these complaints will not make it to the decision makers.
In the modern corporate world that leadership has entirely insulated itself from customer feedback - if it was plausible to voice your opinion through more appropriate channels I'd advocate for that but many companies have purposefully shut those channels down.
What is the better option to pass along that message than modestly increasing retraining costs for that position?
I treat service workers with respect, personally, but I am struggling to see what other venues of communication are still available.
1) Stop using the service.
2) Directly email them anyone who might have some say in the matter.
3) Make public posts on social media about your position.
You still may not get heard, but all of these have better odds than complaining to the front-line service workers.
Like I said in my other comment, this is missing the point. This approach won’t be effective. Nothing is actually being communicated to the people making decisions. The difficulty in finding another more effective approach doesn’t change that fact. If you feel passionate about this issue, you should try some of the suggestions by the other commenter.
> but the rest of us are free to judge you for it.
FALSE.
In today's economy and politics of normalized and systemic dark pattern enshittification, fomenting discord toward the turtles all the way down is a responsible civic duty of a disgruntled public captured and corralled by corporate monopolies with no exits.
We shouldn't be rude or hostile to people, but expressing your disapproval or displeasure definitely can (and in my experience, has) caused a chain reaction enough over time the corp makes changes.
> Being rude or hostile
I think that answer is neither inherently rude nor hostile.
Some of these responses really confuse me. “Hostile” was OP’s own word not mine.
Fair enough, but where do you draw the line? What if they ask you for ID for a burger? What if they ask to see your browsing history? Or your medical history? At what point is "I will never give that to you" or "Ha ha, no" justified?
At some point you just buy your burger elsewhere. "Can I see ID!" is absolutely across that "go elsewhere" line. No need to be rude, just stopping giving your money to them.
[dead]
These questions are missing the point. The person you're talking to has no control over the policy so any response directly to them is not going to impact that policy which means the objectionable nature of the policy and your desire to change it are irrelevant. If you're so deeply offended by the question, either stop patronizing the business or voice your criticism in a more constructive manner like trying to reach out to corporate or organizing some consumer action. Don't go the easy and lazy route of attacking the messenger.
No one said to be rude, let alone cruel, to service people. Talk about a weird mindset.
No one said anything that evenr remotely implied the cashier has the ear of the ceo. Talk about a weird mindset.
It's entirely valid, in fact it's positive, being helpful by being informative, to tell a business what you want or why you are not going to buy their product, instead of simply not buying their product.
It's for damned sure valid to tell them what you would preferr if for some reason you are forced by circumstances or priorities to buy their product under duress.
This whole comment is only 2 sentences yet manages to have like a dozen different facets of weird mindset if you unpack it all.
The original comment talked about intentionally creating a “hostile atmosphere”. Doing that for no other reason than making yourself feel better is rude and cruel to the people who have to deal with your hostility.
It's really evil that corporations closed all ways of giving feedback, and the ones that remained are considered bad manners because "think of poor employees".
I just say 'Im allergic to apps.'
The problem is that your response is precisely what the corporate decision-makers rely on to insulate themselves from criticism.
That doesn't mean that you are wrong: there is no point protesting to a cashier. My point is that there is no realistic or effective way for us to actually communicate to the corporate decision makers that rule our world. This becomes even more true as corporations consolidate power, which is precisely the "enshittification" that Cory Doctorow has been writing about.
The person mandating the question doesn't care if you sound hostile to the person at the window, they just care how many start using the app.
There are definitely some people who think that directing anger and unpleasantness at the person they talk to (who has no control over the situation other than choosing not to do their job) is a valid approach to providing "feedback".
Some sort of "trickle up" mechanism where if enough people are sufficiently nasty to frontline workers, it'll get back to decision makers who will then change course.
I think that's fantasy and/or rationalization for taking things out on others.
Many people here seem to think a customer clearly stating their preference is inherently angry and unpleasant to front line workers. It isn't.
The context of the comment I was replying was "The person mandating the question doesn't care if you sound hostile to the person at the window".
So the premise is "the customer is hostile".
I think that reaction stems more from the comment outright seeking to create a hostile atmosphere about it, not from being clear on preferences in itself.
It's the same thing with customers who make a big scene about a missing fries or something. 99% of the time it's not a problem and nobody cares - here's your fries, have a nice day. 1% of the time the person cares less about the fries and more about being hostile about it on principle/for fun/for respect/because they are in a bad mood/whatever, and those are the ones that suck to deal with when you're there but not in charge.
Indeed. I think anything short of tossing your drink at McDonalds workers probably doesn't phase them. They deal with much worse shit from the public than somebody snarking at the premise of having an app.
I was a customer facing employee for a company whose underhanded policies caused me to face a lot of (legitimate) hostility. I eventually quit for this reason, and I know at least one other employee who did. That company lost two otherwise good employees. It works, it's just a question of how much collateral damage you're ok with. If management want to use front facing employees to shelter them from customer grievance, what other target to people have?
Did things change after you left?
Yes. But...
It is a bit off to attack the drones of a corporate, albethey the only available target?
Do you really need that burger? Better to boycot them entirety
(Easy for me to say, I dispise MacDonalds food)
The particular problem here is there's no feedback as to why you boycott them.
You see, the following headline has more effect on CEO's and decision makers
"McD's sales drop 10% after customers refuse the app and other forms of spying" --Forbes
If it's a silent boycott then you see stupid headlines like
"Are millennials killing McD?"
Remember the entire purpose isn't so that one company doesn't track you with an app, is so every company figures out tracking you with an app is a bad idea.
So write to the news. The problem is not lack of publicity avenue, it's too few people seem to care enough about apps selling their data to make the headlines in the first place. They'd rather just get the burger and not care.
The teenager on the other end of the headset isn't the person you should be fighting this battle against.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, pal. I am not mad at you, okay? I am mad at the system. Okay, but unfortunately the system isn’t here for me to direct my frustrations at it—“ Dennis
It's a good thing that decision-making executives are the ones who hear what you say into the squawk-box. And that the local employees get to decide how to answer, and aren't on a mandatory script.
You can simply reply no, and be polite about it.
You’ll be asked the next time you visit, guaranteed. No matter your attitude so why be mean?
It's usually asked by AI, at least at Taco Bell. There is no human that will feel the hostility.
Are you saying AI takes your order at Taco Bell drive through? If so, good thing to avoid.
No, just to ask you if you're using the app. After you say no a human comes on the intercom. The human doesn't have to suffer the abuse of asking about the app, wouldn't surprise me if part of that is because it's set lots of people in a rage so they let them just vent to a computer.
I have no idea what happens if you order through the app, maybe in that case it's 100% AI.
On the contrary, some Taco Bell locations are using an LLM for the entire order conversation. It's still a human that takes your card/cash, but they only state the price to be charged, and ask about hot sauce packets. I was so unsettled by the experience that I ended up not noticing the extra drink they handed me until I made it all the way home.
if ones tirade is of sufficient duration, [or volume] the human will hear at least part of it.
like a glance at the menu wasn't enough ...
btw, i just now did glance at the menu online, i had no idea that this crap i wouldn't dare to call food (unless i were starving) is currently selling in spain. this is a tiny bit depressing but was actually to be expected, and i stand by my statement :-)
It did but I think they're rolling that back now.
It can be interesting to look at all the servers these apps try to reach after being installed
Unless one is using something like GrapheneOS, Android/iOS "app permissions" do not meaningfully impede data collection
As long as apps can connect to the internet, data can be collected. By design Android/iOS does not enable users to deny internet access to specific apps. That design is not a coincidence
To me, the differences between iOS and Android are insignificant. Both corporate OS suck, and there are other corporate OS that suck, too
The fundamental similarity is that Apple does not protect the Apple computer owner^1 from Apple anymore than Google protects Android users from Google
Like Google, Apple collects data and profits from ad services. The Apple hardware buyer becomes the product after purchase. Apple profits from selling access to the hardware owner to myriad third parties. It's always making deals
Like the one with Google we learned about in the government's antitrust case. But I digress
There was a meme something like, "Unless you're paying, you are the product". But it's also possible to pay and be the product. For example, when someone purchases an individual Windows license from Microsoft, after purchase the company is still going to _require_ them to create an "account", connect to the internet and be subjected to data collection
Both iOS and Android have "app stores" (MS copies this, too), both expect and intend these "app stores" to earn them revenue from advertising, e.g., allowing apps to do surveillance, data collections and show ads
1. who is forced to use iOS. No "unlocked" bootloaders. No custom ROMs
On iOS you can deny an app cellular data access which accomplishes this, as long as you don't launch it on Wifi. But yes I too wish I could deny apps internet access completely.
"... as long as you don't launch it on WiFi."
Unfortunately, apps can still connect even when they are not "launched"
There are ways to deny apps internet access completely. But this is not something that is provided by Apple or Google
> By design Android/iOS does not enable users to deny internet access to specific apps.
It does seem like the number one permission you might wish to choose not to grant, doesn't it?
In a privacy-first design there could also be an API for an encrypted channel that the user has access to, rather than allowing the device to send mysterious black-box data from your device on your behalf in the background whenever it wants. Though I suppose it would just turn into base64 "plaintext" payloads quickly and become normalised rather than a neon sign of fuckery afoot.
It would be cool to have some form of filtering vpn to do just that and easy to deploy on a personal vm provider.
Maybe I should ask Claude Code to kludge together something.
>> I wonder if selling personal information makes them more money than selling hamburgers.
Historically it's been a real estate company due to the vast portfoloio and usually prime locations. Not sure if this is still the case.
careful !
https://survivalfreedom.com/how-much-does-it-cost-mcdonalds-... [2023]
https://hpshplaidline.org/2024/02/08/breaking-down-the-cost-... [2024]
It sure seems like whenever a corporation grows old, large or expansive enough, it will inevitably morph into an spy agency. Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business wants to spy on people.
Earlier this week I was in a regional gas station getting lunch, they've got maybe 30 or so locations scattered around this part of the state, and watched them tell an old man that he couldn't get a loyalty card from them anymore because they only do apps now. "But I don't have a cellphone" - "Uhhh... You can also do it online?"
> Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business
Technically, McDonald's is a real estate company[1] who wants to spy on people, but that doesn't make it any less egregious.
[1] https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...
Isn't that technically true for all franchises?
If every restaurant is its own small/medium business and the corporate franchisor only ever interacts with the franchisees and never with the end customers, then all the direct revenue for the franchisor will be from services or licenses provided to the franchisees, not from directly selling burgers. But the franchisees are still much more dependent on the franchisor than they would be in a normal B2B relationship. And many of those "service costs" can be freely set by the franchisor and have the purpose of channeling revenue back from the restaurants - revenue that would not exist if no burgers were sold.
No.
The specific point here is that the McDonald's Corporation is often the landlord of its franchisees. Of course most franchisees of any franchisor are required to buy supplies etc from the franchisor, but McDonald's is famous for also charging them rent.
McDonalds is a real estate business. I recommend you check out the 2016 movie "The Founder" which is the story of Ray Kroc. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder
> McDonalds is a real estate business.
In the same way that American Airlines is a credit card company. How much rent will they receive if they stopped selling burgers?
> The Founder"
Good movie but McDonalds is a long long way away from scrappy, morally-bankrupt Ray Kroc's time. I imagine using pink slime to make the nuggets he sold to kids would be right in his wheelhouse though.
American Airlines is more a credit card company than McDonalds is a real estate company. If McDonald's stopped collecting rent from its franchisees, there would probably be layoffs at corporate but the general public would still be able to buy Big Macs.
If American Airlines' credit card revenues dried up they wouldn't be able to pay their fuel bills and the company would be gone the next day.
> In the same way that American Airlines is a credit card company.
I thought the "they're not what you think" deal with airlines is that they're actually futures trading companies that happen to own and operate some aircraft?
While very interesting and a great movie, maybe can you explain how it's pertinent to this conversation?
>> "Even what is obstensibly a burger flipping business"
> ostensibly
probably implied they knew.
Ostensibly ;)
But yes, good movie too.
> a burger flipping business wants to spy on people
"It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17."
https://marshallbrain.com/manna2