Dave would be FURIOUS

Now who's Dave?

Dave Thomas.

Why?

"Surge Pricing" is coming to Wendy's. Supposedly the existing operations are being 'upgraded' with tech-heavy digital menus. So of course the first thing that comes out of some money-grubbing idiot's mouth is "How can we profit more, the better to recoup this entirely unnecessary expense?".

Everybody on the user end hates the notion of 'surge pricing' with a furious passion. Jacking up the price of something arbitrarily just because the options are limited or the conditions are suddenly difficult? It's something largely pioneered by car-sharing services, designed to extort more profits from people in a bind by making them pay a premium for a service that might not have any competition due to time, place, or other circumstance.

Now on some level, I get it. As somebody who's gotten that 2am call for a rescue from somewhere dark and cold (more times than I care to remember), I get the sentiment. You go above and beyond, you are owed. But this is something people are already on call for. Everything is already in place and all set to go. You can't just randomly double the rate just because it's 2am, or because a concert just let out. The decision to be available was made ahead of time, and the service provider is obliged to deal with the complications, not demand random amounts of additional compensation. 

This sort of approach has been proven to create terrible relationships between users and services, through wholly unnecessary financial vagaries. Would you go out to lunch with ten bucks in your pocket if you knew you'd be charged twenty? Would you have even considered going out at all?

Even some of what I'd consider industry apologists have stepped forward to say "What the hell?!". In Eater magazine just today (Edit: Yesterday, now), we have this from Amy McCarthy:

It’s long been clear that, for many major corporations, cranking out every cent of possible profit is far more important than customer satisfaction, as evidenced by the scourge of “shrinkflation” and what feels like a widespread decline in food quality across the board. While in theory Wendy’s could use its new menuboard technology to discount fries when the drive-thru is deserted, dynamic pricing also offers chains the ability to implement the price hikes we’ve seen everywhere else at an individualized level. And it’s not because they need to make a little more money on their french fries to stay open. What they’re actually doing is testing you — us, consumers — to see exactly how much you’ll pay for a burger and fries when you’re in a hurry and Wendy’s is the only good option around for lunch.

I don't know about you, but I don't like the notion of paying random prices. For the same reason I don't buy food in airports- I'd rather go hungry than be held hostage.

Too many are grudgingly willing to pay premiums for the illusion of convenience, and they're being fleeced more thoroughly every single day. Where's the tipping point? Should have been a long while ago.

What's the solution? Well... it's a messy one, but quite simple in concept- If nobody made cheap stuff, there’d be plenty of resources to produce valid quality at affordable prices. Get rid of 'quick service' and 'fast casual' dining. You immediately free up incredible amounts of farmland, foodstuffs, factory production capacity, highway space, and commercial real estate. If every Fridays was a farmer's market? Every BK a bodega? Food deserts would disappear.

There's more, of course. But that's where it needs to go.

Bet it won't.