6 ms·

Surely the cost of all this infra/maintenance is several times higher than some people taking a few extra refills, my understanding is that the sugar-syrup cost

Surely the cost of all this infra/maintenance is several times higher than some people taking a few extra refills, my understanding is that the sugar-syrup costs to McDonalds are insignificant. Perhaps not?

yourenotsmart 5y ago
And RFID chip is less than 10 cents. The rest is amortized rather quickly. When you calculate McDonald's losses, don't assume the base cost of water, or soda, but the opportunity loss of missed sales, which are significantly larger.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  10 cents is a lot when the cup probably costs 3 cents, the syrup 3 cents and the water 0.1 cents... You're more than doubling the materials cost to sell a coke.
  - yourenotsmart 5y ago
    A coke is one dollar. So paying 10 cents to get back a missed dollar suddenly makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? I know it's not 1:1, but they have the data, and apparently it's still more profitable/preferable for them to have RFID. Furthermore if McDonald's doesn't want to attract freeloaders, which bring with them all kinds of other risks and cultural issues that might repel actual paying customers, they have that right. They're not a social center. And don't forget they HAVE THE DATA. They know how much cups they sell and how much water and soda they dispense. They've done the math. Can we stop pretending we know more about their profit/cost and operations than they do?
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      But if they could solve the same problem for 1 cent, they would do that - independent of the data. Eg. A unique QR code on the underside of the cup.
      - yourenotsmart 5y ago
        > But if they could solve the same problem for 1 cent, they would do that - independent of the data. > Eg. A unique QR code on the underside of the cup. Let's have a QR scanner below the cup, where people constantly spill their drinks. Great idea. /s
  - ac29 5y ago
    You're completing ignoring labor costs, capital expenses, building rent, franchise fees, equipment maintenance, etc. A single soft drink may not cost much in terms of raw materials, but running the business has lots more costs involved than just raw materials.
- dathinab 5y ago
  > , which are significantly larger. They are close to zero (I think). Most McDonalds (I know of) either have free refills or provide pre-filled cups. So this mainly prevents you refilling "to often" or with "to old cups". The huge majority of people will not "refill to often". But homeless people might try try to get some extra drinks by refilling using old cups or cups from other people. But they also don't really have the money to buy additional drinks. So no relevant amount of not sold drinks are missed out on. At least IMHO and with the kind of McDonald I have been in. EDIT: Cleaned up sentences.
  - yourenotsmart 5y ago
    I don't know why we need to speculate and pretend to know more about McDonald's than they do, given they have made those decisions based on data, not speculation. Also soft drink/water sales are not "close to zero". I don't know what you mean.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      >"they have made those decisions based on data" I don't know why we need to speculate and pretend that we know that their decisions are well-considered and backed up by data. I don't know why we pretend like leaderships does not have same flaws the rest of humanity does, and egos to boot.
      - yourenotsmart 5y ago
        Let's see: - They have feedback from every venue, sales data, and dispenser use data, and these teams have been running the company for years, some decades. - And we have A SINGLE TWEET, and 30 seconds for a hot take during a coffee break. Clearly, we know better. FFS.
        dathinab 5y ago
        But us not knowing better still doesn't mean that their decision is backed by data. In my experience quite a lot of business decisions are not backed by data, especially when it comes to people generally perceived as "less liked" like e.g. homeless people.
lancebeet 5y ago
The cost of losing the soda/water is probably insignificant. The real loss is the money not paid by people for the refills which is orders of magnitude higher. I don't have any figures on it but I would guess this is more than enough to justify the infrastructure and maintenance.
maskros 5y ago
Cost saving is not the purpose. The purpose of this and other things like armrests on benches is to drive away the homeless and the poor so the rich don't have to see them.
- dnzkw 5y ago
  The rich don't go to McDonald's. The homeless are simply problematic, to the rich and the poor alike. They drive away everybody which is lost sales.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    > The rich don't go to McDonald's. I'm not sure what you mean, I mean what have the arguments you commented on to do with "the rich". In the end there is a very large swath of people between poorish and not rich which go to McDonalds. > homeless are simply problematic Idk, I can't speak about the homeless in other places but at least where I live it's most times not too big of a problem. But then I could imagine it quite a different situation in other places. Like e.g. where I live there are places the homeless can go to to take a shower, it's not perfect but in the end except a few exceptions most homeless tend to be at most a bit smelly and in turn it's not a problem in most McDonalds if they would pass by there.
    - ImprobableTruth 5y ago
      >I mean what have the arguments you commented on to do with "the rich". They're directly responding to a comment literally saying that this is done to drive away the homeless and poor so "the rich" don't have to see them. And maybe homeless people differ depending on location, but where I'm from a good amount of homeless are obviously mentally unwell and alcoholics/on some other drug. Most of them seem peaceful and nice enough, but I've also had pretty negative experiences that range from unpleasant to downright scary. I wouldn't care if I saw a single homeless guy at a McDonalds, but if I knew that this was a location that attracted groups of homeless people (like e.g. some parks are), I would definitely stay clear of it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dathinab 5y ago
It's not really about saving money. It's about keeping homeless and very poor people out of it. It's the same kind of thing as park benches being designed to be unusable for sleeping on, empty unused rain areas below bridges being walled of or filled with spikes or vegetation in parks being removed and replaced with grass and similar to make it less pleasant to stay there over night. I fear if they could they would use a combination of image recognition to ban people which look homeless from entering their shop at all. Just to be clear this things are/would be normally mandated from the top, so the people operating the specific restaurants might not have any say in it.
- mypastself 5y ago
  Why would the business be interested in keeping the homeless out, if it has no impact on the bottom line? What’s in it for them?
  - retrac 5y ago
    Those above the homeless in social status go out of their way to keep them out of sight. If your store becomes a de facto gathering place you will have few customers.
    - mypastself 5y ago
      Which is my point. They are doing what’s best for their bottom line, not engaging in some nebulous form of class warfare.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jjj123 5y ago
        Yeah I think most understood the parent comment’s “it’s not about money” to mean “it’s not about money lost on illegal refills.” We hear your point that it could have been a bit clearer, but you’re agreeing with the OP.
Closi 5y ago
I assume it's to stop people staying too long without paying more, rather than about raw material costs. Turning tables over in restaurants is important, as restauraunts make money from the number of meals they serve.

yourenotsmart 5y ago

And RFID chip is less than 10 cents. The rest is amortized rather quickly. When you calculate McDonald's losses, don't assume the base cost of water, or soda, but the opportunity loss of missed sales, which are significantly larger.

londons_explore 5y ago
10 cents is a lot when the cup probably costs 3 cents, the syrup 3 cents and the water 0.1 cents... You're more than doubling the materials cost to sell a coke.
- yourenotsmart 5y ago
  A coke is one dollar. So paying 10 cents to get back a missed dollar suddenly makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? I know it's not 1:1, but they have the data, and apparently it's still more profitable/preferable for them to have RFID. Furthermore if McDonald's doesn't want to attract freeloaders, which bring with them all kinds of other risks and cultural issues that might repel actual paying customers, they have that right. They're not a social center. And don't forget they HAVE THE DATA. They know how much cups they sell and how much water and soda they dispense. They've done the math. Can we stop pretending we know more about their profit/cost and operations than they do?
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    But if they could solve the same problem for 1 cent, they would do that - independent of the data. Eg. A unique QR code on the underside of the cup.
    - yourenotsmart 5y ago
      > But if they could solve the same problem for 1 cent, they would do that - independent of the data. > Eg. A unique QR code on the underside of the cup. Let's have a QR scanner below the cup, where people constantly spill their drinks. Great idea. /s
- ac29 5y ago
  You're completing ignoring labor costs, capital expenses, building rent, franchise fees, equipment maintenance, etc. A single soft drink may not cost much in terms of raw materials, but running the business has lots more costs involved than just raw materials.
dathinab 5y ago
> , which are significantly larger. They are close to zero (I think). Most McDonalds (I know of) either have free refills or provide pre-filled cups. So this mainly prevents you refilling "to often" or with "to old cups". The huge majority of people will not "refill to often". But homeless people might try try to get some extra drinks by refilling using old cups or cups from other people. But they also don't really have the money to buy additional drinks. So no relevant amount of not sold drinks are missed out on. At least IMHO and with the kind of McDonald I have been in. EDIT: Cleaned up sentences.
- yourenotsmart 5y ago
  I don't know why we need to speculate and pretend to know more about McDonald's than they do, given they have made those decisions based on data, not speculation. Also soft drink/water sales are not "close to zero". I don't know what you mean.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    >"they have made those decisions based on data" I don't know why we need to speculate and pretend that we know that their decisions are well-considered and backed up by data. I don't know why we pretend like leaderships does not have same flaws the rest of humanity does, and egos to boot.
    - yourenotsmart 5y ago
      Let's see: - They have feedback from every venue, sales data, and dispenser use data, and these teams have been running the company for years, some decades. - And we have A SINGLE TWEET, and 30 seconds for a hot take during a coffee break. Clearly, we know better. FFS.
      - dathinab 5y ago
        But us not knowing better still doesn't mean that their decision is backed by data. In my experience quite a lot of business decisions are not backed by data, especially when it comes to people generally perceived as "less liked" like e.g. homeless people.

lancebeet 5y ago

The cost of losing the soda/water is probably insignificant. The real loss is the money not paid by people for the refills which is orders of magnitude higher. I don't have any figures on it but I would guess this is more than enough to justify the infrastructure and maintenance.

maskros 5y ago

Cost saving is not the purpose. The purpose of this and other things like armrests on benches is to drive away the homeless and the poor so the rich don't have to see them.

dnzkw 5y ago
The rich don't go to McDonald's. The homeless are simply problematic, to the rich and the poor alike. They drive away everybody which is lost sales.
- dathinab 5y ago
  > The rich don't go to McDonald's. I'm not sure what you mean, I mean what have the arguments you commented on to do with "the rich". In the end there is a very large swath of people between poorish and not rich which go to McDonalds. > homeless are simply problematic Idk, I can't speak about the homeless in other places but at least where I live it's most times not too big of a problem. But then I could imagine it quite a different situation in other places. Like e.g. where I live there are places the homeless can go to to take a shower, it's not perfect but in the end except a few exceptions most homeless tend to be at most a bit smelly and in turn it's not a problem in most McDonalds if they would pass by there.
  - ImprobableTruth 5y ago
    >I mean what have the arguments you commented on to do with "the rich". They're directly responding to a comment literally saying that this is done to drive away the homeless and poor so "the rich" don't have to see them. And maybe homeless people differ depending on location, but where I'm from a good amount of homeless are obviously mentally unwell and alcoholics/on some other drug. Most of them seem peaceful and nice enough, but I've also had pretty negative experiences that range from unpleasant to downright scary. I wouldn't care if I saw a single homeless guy at a McDonalds, but if I knew that this was a location that attracted groups of homeless people (like e.g. some parks are), I would definitely stay clear of it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dathinab 5y ago

It's not really about saving money. It's about keeping homeless and very poor people out of it. It's the same kind of thing as park benches being designed to be unusable for sleeping on, empty unused rain areas below bridges being walled of or filled with spikes or vegetation in parks being removed and replaced with grass and similar to make it less pleasant to stay there over night. I fear if they could they would use a combination of image recognition to ban people which look homeless from entering their shop at all. Just to be clear this things are/would be normally mandated from the top, so the people operating the specific restaurants might not have any say in it.

mypastself 5y ago
Why would the business be interested in keeping the homeless out, if it has no impact on the bottom line? What’s in it for them?
- retrac 5y ago
  Those above the homeless in social status go out of their way to keep them out of sight. If your store becomes a de facto gathering place you will have few customers.
  - mypastself 5y ago
    Which is my point. They are doing what’s best for their bottom line, not engaging in some nebulous form of class warfare.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjj123 5y ago
      Yeah I think most understood the parent comment’s “it’s not about money” to mean “it’s not about money lost on illegal refills.” We hear your point that it could have been a bit clearer, but you’re agreeing with the OP.

Closi 5y ago

I assume it's to stop people staying too long without paying more, rather than about raw material costs. Turning tables over in restaurants is important, as restauraunts make money from the number of meals they serve.