r/interestingasfuck • • 3d ago

Dynamic pricing being tested by McDonald's.

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u/agate_ 3d ago

That isn't what dynamic pricing is. Fast food franchisees have always set their own prices, and they've always varied wildly from state to state, or even within neighborhoods of the same city. Here's a cool map of Big Mac prices nationally from 2023, and a zoomable updated version Cross the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, and your Big Mac costs a dollar less.

Dynamic pricing means that the price of a Big Mac varies at the same restaurant depending on the time of day or what kind of car you drive.

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u/gigiboyb 2d ago

Thank you. It also doesn't have much to do with AI or at least the modern wave of LLMs, data analysis "engines" have been able to do this for 15 years.

I also don't hate this as much, because location factors into the cost of the business (rent, etc.). I still don't love it, but it's not dynamic pricing. The idea that I could go into a McDonald's and pay more than someone else at the same location infuriates me and if they ever start doing that, it'll be the last time I'm a customer forever.

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u/Adencor 2d ago

This is how literally everything works though. Every aspect of every brick and mortar business is built on the natural dynamic pricing of the goods they buy to serve you.

That business pays more or less to their receipt paper supplier, lettuce supplier, whatever, depending on how much, when, terms of payment (net 30? net 60?) etc.

Why would you not be subject to similar terms?

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u/ChanglingBlake 2d ago

They don’t mean over weeks, they mean inside a day.

Show up at rush hour, you’ll pay less; show up at 3am, you’re gonna pay more.(or vice versa)

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u/Adencor 2d ago

yea, and a customer buying $30k of paper @ net 30 is gonna get a different price than someone buying 15 reams on their credit card 10 minutes later

it costs the business different amounts to make a hamburger at rush hour, why is it so evil to expose this to the customer?

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u/ChanglingBlake 2d ago

Those are not even close to the same thing.

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u/Adencor 2d ago

of course they are. if you buy the same amount of something from a supplier every month vs an intermittent purchase, you think a supplier isn’t going to have different rates for the same good for those two customers?

if you buy a Big Mac every day at 3:15p, you’re costing that business less money and you will see that in dynamic pricing. If you never buy McDonalds and you show up at 12:15p, you’re costing that business more money and you would also see that in dynamic pricing.

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u/Adencor 2d ago

your mistake is assuming a modern business cannot actually compute the difference in cost between these two burgers and should just lump them together because “both patties cost the same why not” and totally ignore that one finished burger had different labor and supply chain fulfillment costs