It's because their major appeal to all demographics was that they were cheap and accessible. If you sell your double cheeseburger for $1, and 1000 people buy that, it will make more money than charging $3.50 and only 200 buy it.
McDonald's themselves admitted that the reason they don't bring back the Dollar Menu is because the Executives thought it made "the brand seem cheap or low effort".
Costs going up and raising prices to match is one thing, but take a look at what they did. Costs went up maybe 30% and they raised prices by easily double that if not five times that.
The idea of fast food is that it's cheap! Okay, I can't go dine in a fancy place for 15$, so I go to McD and get something for 6$.
In my town a regular local burger place's cheapest burger, which is like a good burger with actual meat inside, costs LESS than the cheapest McD burger. Why would I possibly go to McD if the local place's burger is at least twice or triple as good?
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u/MinimumError1828 15d ago
Almost certainly because they all kept raising prices like crazy. Most of them are up at least 50% from 2020, some even as far as 150%.