this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
114 points (86.5% liked)
Mildly Interesting
17365 readers
8 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You can buy a fountain drink and can do your own free refills at most fast food places like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, etc.
Some persons will be unethical and request a free water cup, and later on fill it with soda when no one is looking. Depending on your perspective, this is immoral, but of course it doesn’t hurt the store’s profitability since not everyone does that. I personally don’t do that.
Some fast food chains are removing access to the fountain drinks to discourage that behavior and shift the blame to customers - “bad customers steal drinks, so you’ll all be punished and have to wait in line to get a refill.”
The real objective is that companies can take more profits by “having” free refills, but making it “more inconvenient” to get it. On a busy day with your family at a fast food restaurant when the lines are long, how many will take extra time to wait in line for a refill? More profits in the hands of the owners.
My brother-in-law is the get a water cup kind of guy, also only buys with a coupon and will clogg the line by making several separate orders to get the most "value".
Chick-fil-A is a place that makes it inconvenient to get a refill by waiting in line. They claim it's for customer service and food safety but it's so you ask.
Part of the rationale was always that it costs the company more in cashier pay to get a soda, than it dies for the customer to get a soda. I suppose that calculation changes if you have the customer pay for the refill ps by overcharging initially, but then discourage them from getting it