Burgernomics Δ
Burgernomics Δ
alt-text: Woman ordering food (photo): “I would like to buy a hamburger for the same price that it was 2 hours ago.”
Cashier (sketched): “Sir, this is a Wendy's”
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.
106The 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.
59It 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?
32
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.
34Their employees thank you. They don't wanna make your rush hour burgers.
4
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.
-31
If you still frequent an establishment that does this, you're the problem
46Do 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.
10Bingo!
1Honestly, out of all the problems in the service industry this is the smallest one by far. Surge pricing just affects customers and evens out demand over the shop's working hours.
Much bigger problems are tipping culture and unlivable wages, not to mention tip appropriation. They affect both customers and workers in a negative way, as workers don't get a livable wage and you, the consumer, get a price surge as well.
1That only happens in one country, where people are stupid enough to put up with it. Which was my point
1
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.
Shit I mean lul
42So 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?
39Yes 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
10Permanently Deleted
5
Watch me predict the future: There will be sites/apps that monitor prices so you can order at the least expensive times.
The restaurant chains will sue those sites/apps.
39Kinda 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.
11Yeah... 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...
7
That's gonna be the dumbest lawsuit, which means it's very likely to come to pass
9
maybe some day someone will implement hamburger futures
38- 5
Since beef futures are already a thing, you could invest in that and then use the profit for hamburgers, money being fungible and all that.
5Just wait until Wendycoin drops
4
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.
32The 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.
10Time constraints or not I think most people will just go next door to Burger King.
4
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.
8
29If your mom did surge pricing she could buy the whole Wendy's franchise.
27But she wouldn't because professionals have standards
21Would that work, though? There are guys who want to be the only one at the time, and there are guys who want to be one of many at a time.
2Splooge pricing
6
Especially in Alabama.
1
Steps to creating your own "Bullish Burger" Stock Market
- Bulk order just before peak,
- Resell those orders as demand rises.
- Profit
26that might not be entierly legal,
you cant legally sell onions on the futures market since 195817Huh, son of a bitch. Can't wait to use this one
13
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.
22You're right, it seems like they'd be smarter to offer a discount during off-peak hours. It should accomplish the same thing.
5
Im OOTL whats going on?
12Wendy's will be using surge pricing to increase their prices when it's busy.
30Thank you :D
7
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.)
9Not 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.
3
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.
4Wait, is that a real thing? Do we also have this here in Germany?
4its something the fastfood chain wendy's is trying out.
they dont operate in germany anymore,
so no.6
the cashier can't change the price, why would you ask them?
-5Why do people genuinely care about this? You couldn't pay me to eat at wendy's, I don't care how they price their products.
-7It's a sign of the times. We are fighting change. Humans like having expectations met and standards upheld so we can predict our reality.
19You must see how one fast food chain implementing anti-consumer practices can affect an industry at large, right?
18Wherever you do like to eat might adopt this one day.
17
What's the name of the guy who do this comic? I had it blocked on reddit, how can I block him here?
-9I 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.
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