Everyone knows that McDonald's don't degrade over time. You can put one in its original bag in the closet for a number of years without problems.

Shame on you for not buying in bulk when the price was more amenable. Get down to your local McDonald's now and buy yourself at least 57 Big Macs which I've calculated to be the optimal amount until global warming renders this planet a cinder. And get me a chocolate milkshake while you're at it, please.

McDoubles were $1 many places until 2016 or later. My standard McD meal for years was 3 McDoubles for $3. After that they raised McDoubles to closer to $2 but the McTriple was also about $2 so I switched to 2 McTriples for $4.

Now the only way to get a decent price meal is to use the app and I refuse to use the app. Now and then they’ll have a 2/$6 deal but it still feels overpriced.

The graph itself's utter lack of proportion is more infuriating than the content.

Prices have gone up while portions, service, and even quality (as low as it already was) have gone down. When does "the free market" start improving things for customers instead of just shareholders?

Prices fit for a billionaire who wears depends

I don't see anyone mentioning the proportions of the bars. For example, on the 1st item, $1 vs $2.99 is not even double the size...

I gave up on McDonalds. I can get better food elsewhere for half the price. Their trash was ok for pushing a turd, but not for what they charge today.

The graph is fucked btw. Read the values its different than the bars. Also a gaph like this should set the starting point for everything on the same level and only show the change not how much it changed by. You could put a car on this graph and shiw how its price increased by 100$ which would blow out all the other data even though its price only changed by 1% for example.

Stop buying shitty, overpriced food from a dumpster organization.

If you stop buying it, you'll help signal to the dumpster organization that their prices are too high.

At this point, you’re better off going for the lunch specials at an asian restaurant. Same price, more filling, and less unhealthy.

Sooooo, stop eating there? It’s expensive enough bowing to the grocery cartels, who can afford to eat out?

I was just talking about this with a friend the other day, but it's really not worth it to go to these fast food places anymore even if you do like the food. I remember when, speaking to my friend, we would go to BK in high school and get a couple of "buck doubles", because Burger King used to run a promotion where you could get two double cheeseburgers for two dollars. It was honestly a great deal. Then the shrinkflation kicked in and over time the size of the food became smaller and smaller. Then, the actual currency inflation hit, and fast food companies used the increased price of beef, chicken and other such ingredients as an excuse to gouge the hell out of their prices. Now, if I were to go to BK and get my usual fare, I would be lucky to leave paying less than $16. For like, $4 extra (not including tip) I could go to the Chili's across the street and get an actual restaurant quality burger, and a side, and a beverage and be more than satisfied.

These fast food places are completely off their rocker if they think these prices are reasonable. Inflation is going down, so we as consumers need to stop buying their shit so they can't justify keeping prices so insanely high. McDonalds and other fast food places are the biggest bulk purchaser of raw ingredients, so you bet that they have an insane amount of negotiating power to convince farmers and ranchers to supply the stuff they need for below market rate in bulk quantities.

If you are really craving that unique fast food flavor that you can only get at your favorite chain, let me tell you, there are YouTube channels with copycat recipes that can be made quicker and cheaper than the time it takes to drive to the nearest chain location, order, pay, get your food, leave, and come back to your house to eat it. And they taste almost the same or better in most cases because you make it yourself so you can add as much of the flavorful stuff as you want.

were the bar lengths randomly generated? they make no sense

What's actually infuriating are those bar charts.

I don’t eat there so the jokes on them!

What I as a German take from this is fucking hell was McD in the US cheap before. O.o

I mean it inflated a lot here too, but wow.

They can surge all they like. Our family just stopped buying from them (and most fast food places).

It's not a time saver to sit in a drive thru instead of making something for meals at home.

IMO, it might be a good idea to compare those prices against relative purchasing power of a dollar. I don't know how those prices stack up to the overall rate of inflation or CPI, or even the cost of the specific ingredients. I would have less of an issue with price increases if a) McDonald's profit margin--as a percentage of cost--remained steady, and b) the cost held steady against the relative value of the dollar overall. If it's just arbitrarily raising prices because they can, then that's bullshit.

Based on the comments here, McDonalds probably made the graphic.

Everyone is more focused on how it should have been done rather then fuming at McDonalds for price gouging.

The two inflation calculators that I found said that a dollar in 2014 should be worth $1.33 in 2025. That’s significantly lower than the lowest price increase in this infographic.

If this was just McDonalds, shouldn't there be a Burger King that didn't raise prices to try to gain back market share?

And if this was all fast food joints, is there a common reason besides greed that it happened? If it was just greed, you would think one of their competitors could WALMART (lower prices until competition dies) them.

Mildly infuriating is +122% being the largest bar graph and +199% is the smallest.

It's largely because of new tiered pricing. They want to extract the maximum price while not losing any customers.

To do this, they first double or triple all their prices. Then, for those who are willing to stand on one leg, pat their head, and rub their stomach* while ordering the right things, they'll charge you half price.

(*By this I mean use their app. The main purpose of the app and the deals are to charge everyone what they're willing to pay.)