McDonald's is Going Towards Self-Serve Kiosks (Forbes article)

Non-regional discussions Food in the news & other media
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But who will I ask if the McRib is back or not?

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The kiosks don’t eliminate all the drones. There’s always at least one near the kiosks to help the elderly or Ted from accounting who seems to break computers by mere proximity.

They also don’t take cash, only plastic or smart-wallet (apple pay, etc) If you’re paying with physical money (What ARE you, Amish?) you have to go to the counter to pay an actual person.

What’s weirder is ‘table service’. You get your number and sit down wherever, and then someone brings you your food, with the fries in a trendy paper-lined steel basket thing and a folded napkin like they were serving actual food.

I’m pretty sure we were not ever meant to enjoy McDonald’s as if it were some locally owned artisanal diner with house-made tarragon aioli for your fries.

Politically, those kiosks were gonna show up no matter WHAT the minimum wage is, because even $7/hr is more than $0. The push for a fair wage is overdue and needed, but it doesn’t change the fact that as a society, we have innovated our way to a point where it is almost impossible for anyone to make a real living off “grunt work”, And not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever.

But then, if I’m already at McDonald’s, I just want some goddamn chicken nuggets.I’m not too concerned who/what is handing it to me. If I was, I’d be eating almost anywhere else.

3

Robots don’t cost $0 an hour, but the percentage of jobs where they’re cheaper than humans keeps increasing. I wonder how long it will be before it’s politically acceptable to discuss some way of distributing wealth other than jobs?

McDonald’s apparently needs to expand its market beyond people who don’t care whether what they’re eating tastes like or whether it’s healthy.

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AMEN.

Yep. I would hope sooner than later, but I imagine it’ll take some sort of economic disaster for it to actually be dealt with (see: global warming). Because it’s not only service jobs. Think of all the truck drivers who will be out of a job once automated driving becomes viable on a large scale. Etc etc. Once all the jobs are gone, there will be a lot of people in need of assistance just to get by.

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I wonder how long it will be before it’s politically acceptable to discuss some way of distributing wealth other than jobs?

Ask and ye shall receive. A recent think piece addressing this very issue.

Also, I’m 48 and have never tried a big mac.

1 Like
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People on the fringe have been writing about that for years, at least as far back as 1968 when one of the Yippie documents advocated “full unemployment” with the slogan, “Let the machines do it!”

One of the first points that guy makes is that “everybody from left to right” still advocates full employment.