They're trying to say something beyond that, but I'm not sure what it is either. It looks to me like an accident in the metaphor factory. Someone decided that

They're trying to say something beyond that, but I'm not sure what it is either. It looks to me like an accident in the metaphor factory. Someone decided that using a fast-food metaphor might yield insight into the future of the publishing business -- hence, this essay. But that's an inane metaphor. The food business is very, very different from the publishing business. Fast food joints like McDonald's succeed because, among other things, great chefs do not scale: I can't click a button and eat a meal made by Jamie Oliver, because the guy lives in another country and food can't travel over TCP/IP; even if it could it can't be copied using rsync; the guy only has two hands and there's a line out the door for tables; the quality depends on ingredients which cost a lot; and even if I have a great meal on Tuesday there's no guarantee that Jamie's Wednesday meal will be great -- maybe Wednesday's special is made with basil, but I'm allergic to basil. But none of this is a problem with publishing in the age of the Internet.