??? My local BK is great. It's just the app that I'm complaining about. Food quality is pretty much the same as other fast food places and they've yet to mess up my order.
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I guess we can no longer have it "our way" at Burger King
- Thread starter usagora
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??? My local BK is great. It's just the app that I'm complaining about. Food quality is pretty much the same as other fast food places and they've yet to mess up my order.
I still get McDs breakfast on occasion and the most annoying thing lately is the drive thru person saying "do you want to use the MyMcDonalds rewards app"? NO I DON'T WANT TO USE YOUR SPYWARE APP! Only a matter of time before all sales/coupons only work through an App.
I realize you are complaining about the app. My comment was about their food....which is subpar to even McDonalds, which is saying a lot. I would eat at McD if I were hungry enough. I've driven right past BK, despite being hungry and having no other option.
Please explain how the McDonald's app is spyware. That's a pretty serious accusation.
Come on, really?
Any "loyalty" app is collecting data on your purchasing habits and therefore "spying". At best that data is collected to give a company better information to market their products to you. At its worst they are collecting data on you and selling it to brokers so that they can build a more complete "picture" of you and your habits.
This is all very common knowledge. Walk into McDs, order food, pay cash, no data. Get "tricked" into an app with free fries and you cough up all kinds of personal data.
You're aware the spyware apps don't tell you what data they collect, right? That's sort of a key aspect of "spying"--not letting others know what you're really up to. The McDonald's app is perfectly legal and it's your fault if you install it without checking into it if you're paranoid about data collection. They're also using that data for legal purposes, not malicious ones. They'd be sued out their you-know-what if they were actually distributing a spyware app.
The difference between legitimate, legal data collection and malicious, illegal data collection is not a minor point. Accusing a company of distributing spyware is a very serious thing. You need to be more careful with your words.
There is a book, can't remember the title, that said that fast food, and 'food' in general is the biggest fraud on the planet. 'We' have given this corporations near total dominion over our need for sustenance, and they use any means they can to fulfill that while making as much money as they can. I wasn't surprised that McDonald's was busted for using lard in their friers for their 'world famous fries'. Burger King did it too. Why? It was cheap. So much 'food' use high fructose corn syrup because why? It's cheap! It's really cheap! It's also taxpayer funded to a surprising degree.
So it's no wonder when we watch 'old time TV shows' and see the vast majority of the actors and extras are SO SKINNY. (Star Trek as an example) It was long before HFCS, and all of the other crap that these corporations lace our 'food' with.
Oh, and SALT! Try to escape that as you get older! I dare you. Sugar is also in the most surprising things. Loads of sugar is found in whole wheat products, because apparently the only way they can sell that is with a huge amount of sugar. It's astounding. I tried to buy more 'whole grains' until I saw how many products had impressive amounts of sugars. Yikes...
Yeah, as I have gotten older, I have really tried, and it's hard, to 'eat better'. I have sworn off any 'fast food', and even many 'slow food' restaurants. When I do, I order the veggies 'dry', and try to avoid salmon (farm raised) and have sworn off beef. People need to be more educated consumers. We aren't going to get back to the days of most people being 'skinny' (skinny and healthy) because the profit motive is so strong, but we as individuals can decline to eat the gorp loosely described as 'food'.
Well, so what? So McDonalds knows I like their crappy sausage McMuffin with no egg and crappy hash browns. Big deal. Who cares? I'll tell anyone who wants to know.
Combine this fascinating insight with the fact that at Wendy's, I get the #1 double, plain, with a large Dr. Pepper, and at Popeye's, I get the 5 piece mild chicken with red beans and rice. I mean - who cares? I don't care. And I don't care who knows what I order at fast food places. Not exactly state secrets.
Here's my Citi card transaction data for the last month...enjoy all my "secrets":
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Don't blame fast food for people being overweight. No one puts a gun to your head to force you to binge on that stuff. I eat fast food weekly, but in moderation. I'm a large-boned 6' 175 lb male (most people think I weigh about 160)--definitely not overweight. But like I mentioned earlier, I don't get a 1300 calorie burger + 600 calorie fries + 500 calorie drink in a single meal. I will just a get a 400-600 calorie burger and that's it except for an occasional small order of fries. I also get lots of physical activity as I also mentioned.
I also love Pizza Hut pan pizzas. But when I order a large one, guess how many pieces is dinner entree for me? One. I freeze the rest and get 8 meals out of a single pizza. I count calories and weigh food religiously. It definitely takes a lot of self-discipline for most people, but that's something we are responsible for, not others.
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I had not had pizza hut pizza in a while, so I got one recently. Holy cow it sucked!! It's even worse than Dominos, which is saying a lot.
To each their own. My go-to is large pan extra pepperoni extra marinara. I don't like any other crusts except the pan crust.
You might not care about data collection but some of us do and try to minimize who has said data. I'd rather protect my data, as best I can, versus get free fries from McDs.
Please explain to me why the McDonald's App needs:
- Location Data: Chances are they just scan a code on the phone to record your purchase so their internal systems would know what location you are purchasing from yet for some reason the app needs to record identifiable location data? How much location data is it storing? Just purchase locations or others during the day if the app is open?
- Browsing history: why does the app need to know you were on apple.com earlier in the day?
- Search history: why does the app need to know you searched for info on Honda cars earlier in the day?
- Contact info: why do they need to know my physical address, email address? I just want a ***** sandwich?
YMMV but it is certainly not just about "McDonalds knows I like their crappy sausage McMuffin with no egg and crappy hash browns". Ever read about Facebook ghost profiles? Don't have to be on Facebook for them to collect data on you.
I don't care if McDonalds knows any of that ****.
Although, to be fair, I don't have their app installed because I don't go there often enough to merit their app taking up space on my screen. But if I look in the Food folder on my phone, I see I have apps for the following:
- Chick-Fil-A
- Subway
- Wendy's
- Popeyes
- KFC
- TexasRoadHouse
- Dairy Queen
- Domino's
- Slice
- Mad-Mex
- Longhorn Steakhouse
Life is too short to go through life paranoid, or trying to boycott every company that does something you don't like. I mean....honestly, most people have a lot more important stuff to worry about. My life expectancy at this point is under the 5 year mark. I'm not going to spend it worrying about if Corporation ABC knows what I'm buying, what my politics are, or the fact that I cruise Craigslist looking for RC cars and Legos.
Fine, but the thing is that some people, a LARGE number actually, Have No Choice! 'Food deserts' are real! People surrounded with no way to 'eat right'. Kids mercilessly advertised to demand HFCS laced 'food' and drinks. Sunny-D should be labeled toxic! It's total crap! How many 'fruit juice' containers announce 0% fruit juice? Or way less than 99%.
The crap that is out there that people are almost literally forced to eat is heartless, cruel. No wonder the world is getting fatter, AND 'American food' is sold around the world, and is often made dramatically more healthful in countries that require it. People carp about the EU, but they are putting the screw to the corporations pushing diet busting crap on people in their countries. It's real... America has a 'food' problem. It's more a delivery system for diabetes and obesity, and too many people have no choice.
Life is also too short to turn over all of your data to rando corporations. This is why I don't use apps for any of these things. I just show up and order.
Then I don't even need to install an app.Oh cry me a river. People always have a choice. Nobody's fault if they make the "easy" choices but their own.
Here is why people get fat: they eat more calories than they burn. It's not magic. It's not rocket science. If you eat at McDonald's every day, because somehow, that is the only place you can find food, then you should be running there and back, rather than driving a car. After you eat, go for a 20 mile run. Problem solved.
I agree completely with this. If it is no big deal, then allow me to opt out. Most likely they are selling the data to data brokers to offset the cost of the free fries...
Life is also too short to turn over all of your data to rando corporations. This is why I don't use apps for any of these things. I just show up and order.
All of the data BS aside...I have to tell you, the food apps are one of the best things to come out of this whole Covid scam, and smart phones in general. I find that by using the app and ordering ahead of time, I am FAR less likely to get an order made incorrectly. I also don't have to deal with a zombie idiot at at counter who can barely speak coherently, let alone make change for a $20 and an order costing $10.43. It also cuts down having to stand in line. All things considered, I would use the apps even if they offered no rewards at all.
Just as one example....my local Wendy's sucks. They're slow, and usually make my order incorrectly. I get the #1 double, plain. However, at least half the time, if you order at the counter, you get it made wrong. They put something like like mayo on it. That virtually never happens when ordering with the app. Additionally, the line is very slow. However, if I order from the app from home, I can place my order, drive there (5 mins, tops) and generally my order is ready and made correctly. All at no extra charge!! It's like a miracle occurred.
I truly hope that you are never the victim of financial fraud, like a stolen CC or identity theft but with an attitude like yours I won't have any sympathy.
I have a polar opposite approach to privacy as the payroll company of a previous employer was hacked and they got the full boat of info. This basically forces everyone involved to maintain credit monitoring for the rest of our lives. When you can wake up any morning to find that someone took out a massive loan in your name it gives you some perspective. The more you put out there the greater the chance it can be exploited.
Have a nice day.
Okay, but some of the issues here are self-inflicted. I live in a rural state and we have plenty of selections. But we also have little local regulation, and little in the way of crime. Starbucks (starbucks!!!) is having to pull out of multiple areas due to crime. Other stores are bailing due to crime and local and state regulations. When local and state governments are hostile to businesses (large and small), why are they surprised when they "win"? (Which is losing as they leave...)