Fast food restaurant Wendy’s plans Uber-like surge pricing, with digital menu boards that change prices depending on demand::The price of a Wendy’s Frosty could soon fluctuate throughout the day as the chain looks to introduce Uber-like surge pricing on its menu.
Great, I cannot wait for not eating it there, like I always do.
Dave would be disappointed!
Maybe workers would be able to upcharge rude customers, at least.
Apparently the backlash was strong enough, that they have announced that they have “abandoned the idea.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68427039
I suspect they’re just going to stick it in a drawer and try again in a couple years, without a massive announcement beforehand
They will still do it as planned. They were morons for bragging about it. Papa john’s already let’s you pay like $2 or $3 during peak to have your delivery bumped to the top of the list. But they sold that as a feature Wendy’s isn’t offering you anything but the chance to get fucked over.
Maybe they also looked at how much it would cost to update every Wendy’s with digital signage when they barely have enough money to staff the stores.
I’m hungry but can’t afford to eat right now because we are in surge pricing.
The thought reminds me of the Carl’s Jr machine in Idiocracy.
machine buzzes you are a bad mother
So if they raise prices at lunchtime, when everyone else is also eating (because we’re human meatbags that require food daily), they could raise prices due to the higher demand?
Yeah that’s a huge turnoff. Part of the appeal of fast food is that you know the cost of the things you like to order.
I’d be ok with it if it actually dropped below the baseline a similar amount off peak
spoiler warning: it won’t
the first time someone not expecting this surge pricing finds out they have to pay more because it’s lunch time, they will not be coming back to wendys ever again
I might be ok with this if they also had “ebb” pricing. If I could walk in at 8pm and get a burger for a buck, it might be worth it never to go at lunchtime again.
This, of course, will never happen.
Also, does that mean the worker’s pay also scales along with the prices?
No, but we’ll be expected to leave larger tips.
… tips? Yall tip at fast food places?
Hahahahahahahaha
No
An extra $0.25/hr during peak. Which of course is done by subtracting the $0.25/hr from the base and adding it back during peak.
And here i thought fast food enshittification already happened
Fast food will always be at the forefront of enshittification. Ghost Kitchens are yet another innovation that takes advantage of the fact that you, as the customer, have no idea how much of a horror show their operation is because they aren’t a physical presence you can just walk into (I guess you could pretend to be a doordasher). You have to put complete faith in the health inspector.
https://youtu.be/KkIkymh5Ayg?si=UNBOxVx5mjXCvLqO
Been a bit since I watched this, but I’m pretty sure they discover the health inspectors can’t even keep up with them.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/KkIkymh5Ayg?si=UNBOxVx5mjXCvLqO
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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And just like that any (s)urge I had to go there ebbed and disappeared.
My thoughts exactly.
Though I rarely eat fast food already, this will be yet another reason not to.
God damn this is ridiculous. People need to read the transcripts it’s not surge pricing.
What are you talking about? Just because they aren’t calling it “surge” doesn’t mean it’s not surge. Unless you’re just saying you prefer the term “gouging”?
In a statement Wednesday, Wendy’s clarified that “dynamic pricing” will include new menus that could offer discounts at slower times of the day, denying the company will raise prices during peak demand.
Lowering prices, also known as “discounts,” and then restoring prices after the “discount” can be understood in reverse: prices go from “normal” to “increased”.
Given the fact that they (like every other fast food company) always charge the absolute maximum the market will bear, then any price – even a reduced one – is still going to be what they calculate to be the maximum. The fact that the maximum is different at times of “increased demand” is exactly what surge pricing is.
Well dynamic pricing and surge pricing in practice are the opposite. Both raise prices.
Surge pricing raises it on peak times while dynamic does it throughout the day and usually during off-peak times to subsidize on peak times.
Surge pricing is vastly different than dynamic pricing. Surge pricing has not chance of working in retail when competition exists.
Dynamic pricing is done in retail already and no one bats an eye at it.
Tesla does dynamic pricing. Fuel stations do dynamic pricing.
Energy companies do surge pricing. Uber does surge pricing.
When there’s a monopoly on a market you wouldn’t do dynamic pricing.
But also it’s why heavy regulation is done.
Uber broke this model because they get to operate as a monopoly while gouging their customers.
I’m not defending Wendy’s but as someone in pricing this is a vastly different thing and is 100 times worse than dynamic pricing.
I can’t imaging having to check the time before going to a fast food joint to avoid “surge pricing.” (Fast food prices are already in rip-off territory.)
Couldn’t be any easier to avoid though - we’ll just cross Wendy’s off our list entirely and problem’s solved, with absolutely no negative impact on us.
My local Wendys is busy often.
This just means I’ll never go. Let alone… Pretend I might?
Guess I’ll buy puts on WEN.
I could see something like this being useful if it was keyed to stock they needed to get rid of. Like they have extra chili or salads, so they temporarily drop in price. They would waste less food which would make them more money, but of course that’s not how it’s being used…
I feel like the easiest way to stop this bullshit is for states with EBT programs to take away Wendy’s ability to charge EBT cards.
Wanna dabble with surge pricing? Fine, but you’ll lose all your customers that are on welfare.
Wow, I didn’t know that some states allow fast food to be purchased by a EBT card. Can’t get away doing that in the south.
I don’t think you can buy any fast food with EBT…? I’m actually surprised they let you buy soda with EBT. EBT doesn’t pay sales tax so they limit what you can spend it on.
Homeless people get the hot meals program, cause they don’t have a fridge or oven in their tent
I didn’t think you could get hot/prepared food with EBT? When I was on it, I couldn’t even heat up a fucking sandwich in the gas station microwave before paying for it.
I feel like this would only work if all the other fast food places did the same thing… please, please don’t do that! Seriously, if it’s peak time like lunch, why would I ever pick Wendy’s, which is now super expensive, or just get shitty food from the other place a block away for half the price?
Also, it’s going to be even more insulting when they no longer offer the cheapest items they have today, which I will assume will never be this low again, even at low points of the day. I really hope this campaign is a huge failure and the people who pitched it are fired because I really don’t want to see a future where this is possibly the standard one day.
