McDonald's is losing its low-income customers • Hacker News Board

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#251

Post by bombcar » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

kotaKat wrote: post #218

How many low income customers are going to sit there and figure out how to min-max the McDonald's App(tm) to get the best possible deal for their money? They're not. They're priced out from the efforts and hoops required to get the deal. And while there's deals in the app, not every deal is the best deal (leading to the min-max situation). (I live somewhere super-rural where McD is one of the only lunch options. I've…

You found the exact combo I build when the cravings hit.

Use the coupon for free fries any size with drink purchase; get the $1 bonusburger, and be out with more food for less money than the two cheeseburger combo.

Annoying as hell to order.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#252

Post by globular-toast » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

f1shy wrote: post #72

FerretFred wrote: post #21

I can only speak for the UK but for quite a while now, McD's has become an uninviting experience, with miserable staff, menu screens that visibly tell you to hurry the f*k up and choose the product. Not to mention customers vying with delivery drivers for orders. I think the problem applies to all-income customers.

My experience is that quality in McD is rapidly declining. We may agree was never a Michelin star restaurant. But I remember being more or leas enjoying the food. Now I just can’t. Maybe I’m getting older. But I would swear the quality is much worse now than say 5 or 10 years ago.

I'd say you've just grown up and experienced decent food now. McDonald's is marketed to children and caters for the child-like palate: sweet, salty and acidic, like tomato ketchup.

When I grew up in the UK in the 80s/90s we ate typical British food. Potatoes every day, boiled veg, baked beans, beige protein things. Back then it was possible to have "Chinese" or "Indian", but it's all total shit: overly sweet, not spicy, greasy as fuck bastardised rubbish. Nowadays I can actually find real Indian, French, Italian etc. that is actually delicious. It's difficult to imagine going back to beige stuff I grew up on.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#253

Post by goku12 » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

auggierose wrote: post #214

goku12 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. I don't know if HN is the place to say this. But, it's just infinitely better these days to cook your own meals. With some modest initial investment and planning, you can minimize the average time and cost of doing it, while still having access to a reasonaly healthy and delicious menu, though slightly repetitive. But if you real…

Yup. Something really simple and cheap, and definitely not worse in nutrition than McDonald's: Buy a pack of chicken legs, marinate them to your liking (for example: olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked or unsmoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, chicken or veggie bouillon cube), let them sit for an hour. Put it into the oven for 50min to an hour at 160 degrees Celsius. Cook rice on the side. After chicken legs are…

I wasn't expecting a recipe as a reply here, but I appreciate it. Sounds easy and delicious too.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#254

Post by globular-toast » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

I think the sad thing is that "high earners" are eating at McDonald's now.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#255

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

grosswait wrote: post #237

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.

Nobody knew, that is true. But not everyone was in agreement, it only seemed that way because dissenting voices were silenced. Do some research and you’ll find that there were plenty of people predicting bad outcomes from the lockdowns. I was not one of them, but they exist for sure.

[flagged]

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#256

Post by antonymoose » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #249

not4uffin wrote: post #223

I mean, near me there are a couple of places that sell sometimes even better quality than McDonald’s for lower prices, so McDonald’s loses the competition in the financial convenience factor.

That has been huge. I used to be able to be absolutely sure that if I picked McD’s, at least the bill would be smallest. No longer. They’re more expensive than Culver’s sometimes!

Throughout my 20s that was about the only factor that led me to McDs - a cheap, fast meal. The 2/$3 McChicken for a lazy dinner or a McMuffin for a hangover fix was always too cheap to pass up.

Nowadays McDonald’s feels like a Seinfeld bit: _Whats the deal with fast-food, it’s not fast, and it’s not food._

I’m pretty much guaranteed to spend so much on a biscuit and coffee that I could go to the local coffee shops in town and get a coffee and breakfast sandwich for the same money and oftentimes faster, somehow.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#257

Post by AstroJetson » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

gyomu wrote: post #230

lotsofpulp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

Insert classic Michael Pollan “if you see it being advertised, it’s likely something you shouldn’t be eating”. No one’s advertising spinach or beans.

Popeye the Sailor has entered the chat. /s

Weirdly, I do get ads for veggies, but it could be driven by my recent research spree on vegetarian recipes to have great food across the holidays for my mostly vegetarian family. I may have skewed “the algorithm “

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#258

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

bragh wrote: post #229

whiplash451 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: do you think that the lockdowns had such long-lasting effect on people as to explain the problems described above? Why would a few months of a “bad idea” induce decade-long changes?

It wasn't a few months, it was a few years of back-and-forth political and corporate shenanigans with a new narrative every few months that the $CURRENT_THING crowd happily ran along with. January 2020: there is nothing to afraid of, the new disease is mostly harmless and affects only the elderly and immunocompromised. Closing down borders is xenophobic. March 2020: do not go outside unless critically necessary and i…

[deleted]

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#259

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

goku12 wrote: post #187

silisili wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

> I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. I don't know if HN is the place to say this. But, it's just infinitely better these days to cook your own meals. With some modest initial investment and planning, you can minimize the average time and cost of doing it, while still having access to a reasonaly healthy and delicious menu, though slightly repetitive. But if you real…

Yet the price of good Parmesan has basically doubled since Covid?

It’s so expensive now we ration its usage.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#260

Post by kingstnap » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #231

_heimdall wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its worth noting that you don't need to avoid meat if the goal is to avoid being a pharmaceutical patient.

Meat is more expensive though and GP was talking about a low cost healthy diet.

I don't think animal products are all that expensive tbh. Chicken, milk, yogurt, eggs are all really cheap if you consider the protien content.

Completely unbeatable value especially factoring in time and convenience and heartiness is picking up a rotisserie chicken and a bag of frozen veggies.

Liver is also very affordable and extremely nutritious.