TBH, the fast food experience is getting so damn weird. The local McDonald's has big signs out screaming "Link your payment card! Order ahead with the app! G

TBH, the fast food experience is getting so damn weird. The local McDonald's has big signs out screaming "Link your payment card! Order ahead with the app! Give us some sort of reward points code!" Last time I went inside one, the till was unmanned, and I had to flag down an employee because I wanted to pay cash (and couldn't find what I wanted on the ordering kiosk). I can see why that customer flow appeals to them-- if they can remove the underpaid high-school kid at the till from the loop, he's not handing discounted items out to his friends, or making change wrong, or simply bollixing up data entry. That's a feature for the BUSINESS, not the CUSTOMER, though. Don't try to sell it to me as something I want. I assume that's why they've pushed so much of the reasonably-priced items through app ordering-- they've got to convince people to use it SOMEHOW. Fast food is supposed to be cheap and easy-- more of an impulse purchase. Expecting me to install an app and pre-plan my visit, if I don't want to pay sit-down prices, is a hell of a lot of friction. It's easy to imagine someone driving up to the menu, all the kids looking and deciding what they want, then proceeding straight through, pulling into a parking spot, making an in-app order, and coming back to pick it up. Otherwise, the $40 order becomes $65. Their marketing consultants probably told them we'd pull up their app/website before we got there, but obviously they have never been in a family where going out for lunch consists of 20 minutes of driving past restaurants and horse-trading before a consensus can finally be reached. What was their user persona exactly?