The Wendy's "Surge" Disaster is Hilarious

[@jacobsweet7327]

Unfortunately Wendy's cancelled the dynamic pricing, which sucks because me and friends came up with a new trading strategy where we were going to buy the dip and set up shop across the street and resell the Wendy's food that we bought during peak hours. Wendy's really wasn't thinking of the gruselers out there.

[@Vysair]

damn bro talks about work smart, not hard

[@nickl5658]

So arbitrage on wendy's.

[@jawarholol4651]

Keep on gruseling

[@KManAbout]

I dont know how many people want cold Wendy's

[@MrPenobe]

or food from a random stranger@@KManAbout

[@GeoW-c9b]

Imagine waiting in line at wendy's, behind someone taking forever with their order and just watching the price steadily go up. People gonna rage out in lines for sure.

[@tobene]

Imagine stalling your order when the prices are falling to get a little discount lmao

[@Artemi22]

​@@tobeneit's not a discount if they don't make the prices lower than the base prices, which they won't

[@Saltience]

I’m sure the employees will love that. I’m sure there will be no vandalism either.

[@xLuky]

​@@tobeneCan I get uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...you guys have burgers here right?

[@Pyxyty]

As much as I hope that would be the case, I feel as if sunk cost fallacy would weigh more on the consumers. "I've waited here this long in line, if I leave now it'll be time wasted", that kind of thing.

[@targetbuddy5]

Atrioc, I work for an Albertsons grocery brand in management, my understanding from the inside is that corporate is feeling VERY cozy about this Kroger deal. They are not the least worried about the FTC, and that scares me.

[@atrioc]

Bummer to hear ! Hopefully they are proven wrong, it's a nightmare for consumers and workers.

[@lawterian]

If they don't merge, they'll definitely just form a cartel with fixed prices and take on any fines that come years after. It's a silly game we play

[@notachainlinkfence480]

Hopefully the FTC can be a little less useless

[@halowaffles]

If they drastically raise pricing, thefts are going to go up and there's nothing they can do about that lol.

[@letsgotomarsman]

You gona cry?

[@banqsterz8160]

Marketing Monday on an actual Monday? Must still be dreaming

[@mesiroy1234]

Its not monday on my Country . almost 1.5 HOURS😂

[@mocapcow2933]

@@mesiroy1234where you located? 1955?

[@NithinJune]

am i dreaming, is there more like us

[@IHitMyKeyboard]

@@mesiroy1234I will drag you into a timezone where it is monday.

[@davidramziz3200]

we are living in the matrix

[@atrioc]

FOR WHAT ITS WORTH - Wendy's backpedaled hard after the bad PR. Now they say it will only be used to LOWER prices during slow hours. This is just the "happy hour" psychological framing that restaurants use to position it as a benefit to you instead of a tax, but the end result is really the same - you pay more during rush hours than you do the rest of the day. Prices will still continue to rise with inflation. That's why I'm stocking up on a safe investment like Mackerel with SBF !!!

[@carson1784]

if they fall off and 2 people buy burgers the whole day does a burger end up costing like .54 cent

[@harryreynolds3057]

Wendy's mid anyway I will not be buying

[@PineappleSquuid]

Too many words big A please use chat gpt to summarize this wall of text next time. I want 4 and a half words max

[@vigilantvigilante2582]

I’m surprised surge pricing has been so rarely used by all these companies enough to make it the norm, they’re just leaving free money.

[@william.pedersen]

The Mack investment fund has me rolling 🤣

[@jkis99]

If Google is truly worried about AI disrupting their business they should probably stop actively making their search feature worse every chance they get.

[@Jaguar21010]

I swear! Nowadays I can't find anything on Google. Straight up I use Google now to search reddit because it's actually kinda better than reddit itself at doing that 😂.

[@pedikun]

like youtube seach hell i there was a lot "unrelevant" relevant seach

[@Ben-og9ff]

Google wrote and released the ‘Attention is all you need’ paper.. ‘considered the founding document for modern artificial intelligence’. Other companies obviously found this paper super useful. In 2023 all 8 authors left google. 🫡

[@Mayhzon]

But but but but IF WE CAN'T CENSOR THE TRUTH AND CALL YOU EVIL FOR BREATHING OUR AIR WE DON'T DO IT RIGHT.

[@Vysair]

@@pedikunyoutube search is literally unusable, nothing related pop outs anymore. I have been using freaking Bing and YT Algorithm now

[@BigUrta]

Note from an Australian: there aren’t only 2 grocery stores here in Australia but they do take up 65% of the total market and it isn’t always feasible to go somewhere else. For example the town i grew up in only had a woolies and coles

[@forcastfascistfuture]

Yeah if you are lucky there might be an ALDI around, and there are still plenty of independent grocery stores but the prices are usually much higher because they don't have the buying power & vertical integration of the chains to keep the prices low.

[@dyppityjoop5912]

​@@forcastfascistfuturealso iga's and if ur in a city u get 1 or 2 costco's

[@wildthang08]

I go to Foodworks and iga 99% of the time personally.

[@thefpstester1293]

Luckily there's a drake's like 1 km away from my place, they've got cheap store brand cookies and stuff it's great

[@lukemc6913]

As an Australian, I'm so stoked you covered the Woolies CEO drama. It's such good chat down here lol

[@atrioc]

let me know if there's more I should know about!

[@lukemc6913]

@@atrioc Jokes aside the cost of living is only half the problem. There was a great report from the Reserve Bank of Australia which pointed out that our Real Disposable Income (after tax etc) has dipped significantly. This is partly attributed to our real estate market which exacerbates the effects of interest rate rises by raising mortgages which applies to like over half the country. Additionally we have some of the worst relative wage growth atm and under-performed the OECD average by about 7%. This means: lower relative wage growth (compared to US) + higher cost of living (Woolies you fcks) + interest rates exacerbated by real estate = not fun economy. So I guess supermarket duopoly is only part of the story. I will note that there are 2 other small grocery players in AUS. IGA and Aldi, but they take a much smaller market share. Anyway we have healthcare so I'll stop complaining. Great video!

[@akiraendoji]

​@atrioc there's also some other cheaper grocery stores other than Coles and Woolies in Australia like ALDI, but in general almost all stores are going up on prices. But it's not just the groceries going up, rent and housing is getting absurd in Australia too. There are houses almost tripling in price over the past 3 or so years it's getting out of control.

[@CrashEng]

@@atrioc Check out the similar story of the 3 grocery stores in NZ, or the insane rental market here. We're fucked

[@joemundy3584]

​@CrashEng 2, food stuffs owns new world, pak n save and 4 square

[@Gullington]

The Wendy's thing is funny because if they just spun it as a happy hour type thing it would have been positivity received. A restaurant in my town has been doing half off mains from 9pm until closing for 10+ years and there is a line out the door from 830 onwards to get a seat for the 9pm half off. They essentially get to ensure they don't have any food waste and get a ton more business during normally slow hours while also charging more the rest of the time.

[@KainYusanagi]

That's literally what they did, though?

[@thenightjackal]

@@KainYusanagi The point is that they purposefully framed it exclusively as "we will increase prices when we feel like it because you will give us more money that way" rather than pretending that they're actually favouring the consumer with reduced pricing certain hours.

[@Jaguar21010]

Crazy that no one at Wendy's corporate thought that the initial decision would be received poorly. Almost like all corporate heads and CEOs are completely detached from reality and only want to "make number go up" for themselves and shareholders. Literally all they had to do was hire one "regular Wendy's consumer" and one consumer psychologist to to work the problem.

[@lesliejacoby9137]

They backtracked and are now doing that lol.

[@KainYusanagi]

@@thenightjackal Except they didn't do that. The "news" article did, by associating it with Uber-style surge pricing out of thin air.

[@MrQuickLine]

My kid had to get some baby teeth pulled. The dentist TOLD MY KID: "The tooth fairy pays double for teeth that get pulled." I'm like "Bitch PLEASE! Insurance is not going to cover that extra premium!"

[@zk6954]

honestly just the fact that a fast food company is seriously considering this route during a time where so many people are struggling to make ends meet is fking ridiculous and leaves a horrible impression. Even if they dont end up going through with this, I wont be wasting my money at Wendys.

[@cadestockman5731]

It’s almost as if every business in America has prioritized profits over the care of its employees and customers. A big reason people don’t want fast food minimum wage to go up is bc those fast food places would reflect the prices back onto customers before they ever even took a marginal hit to $1b+ profits. Customers actively wish for these places employees to live in poverty while working there because they don’t want their Big Mac to go up in cost. That’s just the way the world is for the most part sadly

[@snkybrki]

​@@cadestockman5731Billion dollar profits? You mean revenues, right? No fuckin way Wendy's clears 1 billion in goddamn profits I agree that Wendy's (and many other for-profits) are up to some serious monkey business, but i don't think they're doing anywhere near as well as you say

[@pleepler]

McDonald's was doing it in Belgium when I was there almost 10 years ago. Different prices in the afternoon than lunchtime, different prices across locations even though they were within 500m of the same metro station in Bruxelles. And yes, McDonald's has different pricing across locations in the same town over here in Slovakia as well, so nothing new there. But there was an affair in Belgium when Quick, a McDonald's competitor, did a price surcharge during the night. Which would be fine if they disclosed it on the menu, but no, you found out only when paying at the register. It was like 10% or something, not too insane, but the way it was done was shady

[@adidab14]

I read somewhere that it is a part of a larger corporate effort to move the cell phone "whale" consumer model over to the food industry. Basically, they know they will lose customers but the loyal "whales" (unfortunate name in this case lol) will pay whatever and make up the difference and then some. I can't imagine that would actually work but it's interesting to think about. And depressing :')

[@SeventhSolar]

The illusion is starting to fall apart. The ideals we hold, the virtues we worship, have never played a significant role in _any_ of the works of man. People have always been valued as _workers_ and _owners_ first and foremost, and sometimes this truth shines through more clearly than people would like, but no one's ever done anything about it. Well the value of workers is rapidly going to zero, which means there's less and less of value to own. What now, humanity?

[@ammardian]

Australian here, Atrioc is pretty much correct, we have about 3 grocery stores, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths, with Coles and Woolworths making up about 80% of supermarkets. Most places that you go to will have a Coles or a Woolworths; in country towns it's even less likely that you'll find any sort of grocery chain except for Woolworths or Coles. A major part of the pricing problem is really down to this duopoly, neither Coles nor Woolworths wants to drop their prices (since they are looking at record profits), and in terms of competition, they increase their prices to compete with the other chain. Since there is so little options for any other supermarket, and both Coles and Woolworths keep trying to compete with pricing, we don't have a choice besides accepting the price increases. This is true for quite a lot of industries in Australia, you'll find a similar problem in Mobile Networks, Airlines and Energy, though it isn't as pronounced since there are more choices there, it remains a fundamental issue for us Aussies.

[@lilschlagen]

Brother. If Wendy's starts surging prices at rush hour and I'm McDonalds then I'm price cutting them lmao. Flash sale, everyone come get a big mac.

[@WARnTEA]

Thats the dumbest thing you can do as a big company. Mcdonalds aready is slightly cheaper than wendys. It makes more sense to just charge slightly less and actively enter into an unspoken agreement with wendys to support high prices and not compete against eachother.

[@lilschlagen]

@WARnTEA Or you can competitive price them out of business and not need to rely on an agreement with them so you can decide on raising the price all by yourself. Even from a PR perspective of only doing it once or twice to morally grandstand about how much better you are than Wendy's would be worth it. Paint them as the bad guy and you as the hero.

[@WARnTEA]

@@lilschlagen It just doesn't work like that. BurgerKing has never been good, and its always been more expensive than McDonalds and yet they are one of the biggest fast food companies in the world. Taco Bell has always been the cheapest and yet random taco chains are sprinkled all over the place like weeds.

[@michaelvossen7253]

Why do I see a future where people are checking the Wendy's app like it's a stock price and trying to order their food when the price bottoms out.

[@CrypticCobra]

Oh you sweet summer child.

[@Jaq506]

As a Wendy’s employee prices are already absurd in my opinion. Definitely glad to see this not going through. Especially when at the location I work, we’re so understaffed that it’s hell during rush hour. Especially when we only have one person to make sandwiches for the drive thru, mobile, door dash, Uber, and dine-in orders. Not to mention the absurd things some people order which completely backs up everything. Such as $85 orders with 13 sandwiches and 11 drinks…

[@mudywaterfall]

How the hell is the tooth fariy giving $6 per tooth. I have now learned that my daughter has been severely underpaid for her goods. This is why we need tooth price transparency.

[@mrdavman13]

I was hyped if I got a dollar for my tooth’s 😂

[@Sunshineattacks3]

@@mrdavman13right I got change to a dollar 😅 I should’ve joined the union

[@lights_utopia1130]

Bruh I already didnt go to Wendy's this has set in stone that I will never step foot in a Wendy's again.

[@K311WasHere]

I did like going there but man I ain't touching that place anymore

[@Smenchevieve]

I used to get 4 for 4s regularly but since it was replaced with the 'biggie bag' I haven't gotten wendys since

[@TheScrubmuffin69]

So you guys just don't get fast food then? Wendy's is objectively the best fast food burger restaurant in terms of quality. Still fuck em though

[@danielbrown001]

@@TheScrubmuffin69 I used to eat fast food pre-Covid. But if you haven't tried it, go to a local restaurant post-Covid and compare your bill to fast food. These restaurants used to be the "expensive" option compared to fast food, but now they're CHEAPER. And they make better, tastier food. I only eat at local restaurants when eating out now, and eat food I cook or prep at home the rest of the time.

[@Spoon80085]

An interesting thing for monopolies is that (Economically) they will always hire less people for lower wages (if they're maximizing profits). In addition to that, they produce less goods at a higher price than free market equivalents. So, when you have a merger that is threatening to monopolize the *groceries market,* (A BIG portion of consumer spending) it's really bad. You'll have less people working, being paid less, paying more, for less possible food.

[@Spoon80085]

If this merger goes through, Australian cost of living is going to skyrocket, and many towns will be dozens of minutes from grocery store alternatives, or not have any grocery stores at all. A big part of the monopolization of grocers is how prevalent cars are in a country; and Australia just happens to be one of the few as car dependent as the US. So, small grocery stores cannot compete with larger ones, as the consumer can simply drive further for that option. Those smaller stores close, or are bought out, until *only* the larger ones remain. At that point, the larger grocery stores already have way too much market power, and are negatively affecting the consumers in the ways I listed above. (I hate car dependent infrastructure so much, it strangles the free market)

[@aussie870]

@@Spoon80085 The merger being referenced isn't happening in Australia as the mentioned businesses don't operate here. The ACCC inquiry Woolworths and Coles are facing is about pricing, not anything to do with a merger.

[@connormullin4547]

@@Spoon80085 I'm with you on the merger but you are saying cars are bad and strangle the free market because they allow people to drive wherever they want for groceries instead of being stuck with whatever is closest to them. Do you not see any problems with that logic? Maybe instead of crippling people so they are stuck going to their local grocer (which in Australia is either Coles, Woolworths, and sometimes nothing at all) the Australian equivalent of the FTC could just do their job and break up Woolworths and Coles like they are supposed to?

[@NeillSmith]

I cannot believe more than one person looked at the idea "Let's charge fast food customers more money when the lines are longer" and didn't stop it.

[@Thingsyourollup]

So, you can't believe corporations are greedy?

[@flatbread42]

As a former Kroger employee, the merger immediately put a bad taste in my mouth when first announced. They’re so excited for it I couldn’t help thinking “wait they own like half of the stores around here?!?! All these stores are gonna be owned by one company?” It seems bad.

[@frespects9624]

Competition Is necessary. Gives the consumers choice and better options

[@Danielle_Moore02]

I think the average consumer mentality has been divorced from the concept of fair pricing. It's more a mentality of "I want ___ and I'm willing to pay whatever price they say as long as I can afford it". Consumers used to notice and complain when an item was raised off the dollar menu to like $1.25 but now no longer care when the same item just went from $6 to $8.

[@fedweezy4976]

Really? All I hear and see is "x used to cost __ but now it's __ this is fucked up" like I know a few people who have the mentality around prices that you outlined, but that's bc they're rich n shit. Especially when Wendy's said that prices were gonna be higher it's like fuck no I will just not even walk in, you already told me it's gonna be more expensive

[@Danielle_Moore02]

@@fedweezy4976 the thing is that even with those comments that won't stop people from buying, it is just met with a "yep" and a shrug

[@sanhakim1335]

The definition of afford changed from within my preplanned budget for the month so I have enough to save and for emergencies, to in my bank account

[@debesys6306]

idk i just don't go to fast food places anymore bc it's so much cheaper to just make my own food

[@Lewtable]

Perhaps the internet have created an outlet that makes action less likely. At the same time the internet makes it easier to organize and form groups to act, it also creates plenty of spaces to vent frustrations in issues where the problem isn't major enough to incentivize people to act without growing, pent-up frustration. If something jumped from say, $10 to $20 people would certainly be outraged. But if the same item was increased in price year-on-year by $1 or $2 the difference isn't big enough for people to create a fuss about the price increase before the new price becomes the norm and the price increases again. They just go on the internet, vent or get satisfaction from watching someone else venting about the same and then go on with their day.

[@ricoanderson6626]

The thing that's infuriating about this, is that if you go overseas and see our fast food joints you'd straight up want to riot. In all regards the quality of the food is better along with better (and healthier) menu options, of which is usually served at probably half the price of what it is or would be here in the states and with better service to boot. At every turn the businesses born and raised in the states treat us like bottom feeding afterthoughts compared to how they serve and treat international markets like Europe and Asia. Yet they expect us to dish out more and more money for their crap food.

[@Thingsyourollup]

That one time in 2020 when there was a pandemic and McDonalds used it as an excuse to eliminate salads from their menu saying they risked exposing their employees to Covid.

[@janniszimbalski6652]

That is because they don’t treat you better than they are forced to by law and the US has VERY lax regulations.

[@thuglifebear5256]

Try the Russian versions. Cheap af, McDonald's knockoffs, that are impossible to sue from the states.

[@Turbo-DF]

@@thuglifebear5256 ah yes my favori8te, MIG donalds

[@darkassassin6457]

As an Australian, I’m happy you’re talking about our financial situation and the bullshit situation with our grocery store price gouging Also the Woolworths CEO wore the uniform of a regular worker and LOTS of people were calling him out for it cause there’s no chance he’s seen the inside of the store.

[@MorfsPrower]

Wendy's couldn't be stupider. I tried eating at a location 3 times. Each time they either closed the establishment two hours early, made me wait half an hour without a line in front of me, or just flat out ignored me entirely. I'm not going to ever eat at Wendy's and that's without this scandal. If they really wanted to end their business they're doing a terrific job. That same Wendy's has a 2 star rating on Google, notorious for getting simple orders completely wrong or flat out not giving people the food they ordered entirely. The KFC and Taco Bell next door are BOOMING in comparison.

[@CherryHotSauce]

One bad location really shouldn’t define your opinion on a brand. These restaurants are run by different people and have different quality.

[@1nkc4t]

Marketing monday on a monday? INSANE

[@Thecarlid]

Damn i was about to eat without a video. Thanks atrioc!

[@a.drian.]

just eat without a video

[@Hietakissa]

​@@a.drian.impossible

[@Thecarlid]

@@a.drian. never

[@T0NI_]

@@a.drian. ew

[@jackfruit420]

@@a.drian. impossible difficulty

[@ineffabletryx6528]

cant wait until fast food costs 200 dollars a meal

[@kavinsky2]

probably for the best tbh

[@xerfrex7869]

Yeah, but wages would've increased by 1.32 dollars per hour by then, so it's clearly fine and the system is working as planned

[@GabeMiller2SpoonsOfDoom]

system is being hijacked while they cheat it to get ahead, then they will change the rules and pull the ladder up behind them. These people's entirely life depends on people not having faith in the system. @@xerfrex7869

[@alecwhatshisname5170]

Don’t worry, it’ll be here before you know it

[@lofirabbit4055]

Also, Burger King is so cheap. They just opened one up near by being from New York. I can now get twice as much food for my money than McDonald’s. 8 piece nugget and cheese balls, a drink and a chicken wrap plus a whopper jr. 12$ wtaf.

[@imscaryskeleton5446]

Too bad Burger King sucks. I love getting a stone cold burger, mid fries, and mid Coke out of the Coke machine.

[@dineez627]

As someone who has only started going to Burger King recently, I have to say they have reasonable prices and better yet I got lots coupons. So yeah it's better than a lot of fast food options such as stupid overpriced Wendy's.

[@SahiPie]

Yeah but it tastes like literal garbage

[@connormullin4547]

It's a great deal if you don't mind eating completely inedible garbage. I have tried a couple times but ended up eating a bite or two and throwing it away. Wendy's tastes pretty good mostly and the food isn't sopping wet like BK either. McDonalds is mostly edible if they happen to have heated up your food within the last 5 minutes, if you get anything even slightly old you pretty much cant eat it. Wendys is not on the same level as BK or McDonalds, it's is more like A&W. It's not a good hamburger like 5 Guys but it is somewhere in-between that and McDonalds. I have always been able to eat whatever I ordered from Wendy's and it was fine. McDonalds is edible like 80% of the time, so far BK is 0% on sandwiches/hamburgers for me, but their chicken strips are acceptable. Somehow they even fucked up the pop at the last BK I went to, I don't think they change the syrup and they sure as hell don't clean the machine. I'm sure if a health inspector dropped by they would get shut down.

[@K311WasHere]

If burger king tasted more then just acceptable then I'd go there more often.

[@CommanderWar64]

THAT WASNT THE AGNI KAI WITH ZUKOS DAD, THAT WAS THE GENERAL GUY

[@nhasirduck3500]

zhiao

[@Crabernacker]

Zhao

[@wobblywack5531]

yeah but he got the scar from the Agni Kai w his father, the point still stands

[@irecordwithaphone1856]

It's for a throwaway pink eye joke bro it's not that serious

[@Sticky6Ft]

As of this morning, Spirit Airlines and JetBlue have terminated the merger entirely. Spirits stock tanked because of this

[@Thejigholeman]

>stand in line >wait to order >11$ burger jumps up to 16$ >leave

[@dirremoire]

Leave -> burger drops to $10.

[@stuballingerart]

Thanks for covering the Aussie supermarket price crisis, it's absolutely fucked for us right now.

[@mrgoose3453]

Unless you can go to Aldi much much better there if there's one around you. Saves literally thousands of dollars a year

[@TedCruzFeet]

tooth fairy payments should be the real measure of inflation bc when things get more expensive, the first thing you’re gonna cut back on is the petty cash you give small children who can’t even use it

[@user-uv2cp1qd1j]

“Strippers are the best economists” basically

[@No_Feelings]

Remember when you went wendy's because you didn't have mcdonald's money, and you went to mcdonalds when you had a crumpled bill and some quarters? pepperidge farms remembers.

[@Stanmanme]

As you were talking about the Kroger deal I was thinking "sounds like Australia's situation"

[@austindavis2957]

0 seconds, 14 views. Dude fell off hard

[@geraldtheoctopus1594]

9 minutes, only 4,669 veiws, what a shame.

[@benb8321]

Damn

[@patrickt101]

@@geraldtheoctopus159410 mins, 5.5k views, who let this guy cook Fr⁉️

[@aaOutset]

The new "first" comment

[@Mrmcfastman]

16 minutes, 9400 views. Disappointed

[@cawheeler27]

I love Wendy’s saying they think customers are willing to accept these higher prices and then a few months later scrambling to cut prices because it turned out customers were in fact not willing to accept higher prices

[@Slothptimal]

"Man, nobody goes to restaurants since Covid... what if we raise the prices?"

[@qwelve5848]

I think most people are missing the point. This really isn't a price gouging scheme, it's a way to incentivize customers to distribute themselves more evenly throughout the day rather than clumping at the standard times. From a theoretical standpoint, it makes sense, especially considering most of these same-style restaurants have struggled to hire and retain enough workers to serve customers during such high-volume times. I know most people are just thinking about the higher prices they may have to pay, but from the workers' standpoint, they may have a more reasonable shift due to the pricing.

[@internetrules8522]

"i was in an agni kai with my father" shows zuko fighting General Zhao. This transgression will not be forgiven until atleast 3 more avatar clips are shown in the future videos. also thanks for the avatar clip

[@matt.stevick]

Our entire economic stability is dependent on prices NOT acting like a moving target as if we were in Zimbabwe paying 3 million for eggs knowing tomorrow they will cost 4 billion.

[@jerryfromtheblock6463]

Man i love how capitalism just breeds innovation that improves all our well-beings, like corporations using data mining, digital analytics and fluid pricing to squeeze the maximum amount possible out of every customer. so efficient! so technological!

[@zombieoverlord5173]

Well it is efficient at making money. Not much else though

[@alexanderherzog3064]

No one could foresee rent seeking behavoir

[@kak42]

Capitalism is just a wrecking ball It was great for dismantling the monarchy, but now it's not letting to build something new

[@Alsry1]

its capitalism when its "how much can the consumer accept" vs "how much did this thing cost to make"

[@Mayhzon]

Companies being innovative [Gone German][Gone Wrong][Gone Sexual][BANKRUPTCY FILED, IRS CALLED][Gone out of business]

[@tieember9596]

Because when service is slower, I know what I love is finding out im paying several times more for it The fact they keep trying to insist its not surge pricing means I now have a reason to avoid Wendys (when before i just didnt care)

[@Fyshtako]

I just moved from a city to a rural area in Australia and the prices are even worse, I was flabbergasted. was already crazy and the prices for most stuff here in rural area is 1.8x or so.

[@TheHaughtyOsprey]

I work as a contractor liason at Lowe's. I deal with the construction companies that ma,e high volume purchases and whatnot. The price of (for example) a 4x8 piece of 7/16 OSB has go e up from $14.28 to $17.55 in the last 2 weeks. I asked my supervisor why and he told me it was because of demand. 2 weeks ago I was asking him for advice on the best times to buy materials for my own home renovation projects and he told me it usually doesn't matter because prices usually stay the same throughout the year. Either he was just blowing smoke up my assets, for whatever reason, or Lowe's is following Wendy's example. As a result of these crazy price hikes we are now selling less than half the volume of materials as we were YoY. People are getting tired of the blatant profiteering. I'm hearing a whole lot of dissent and their money is where their mouths are.

[@zbar8649]

I'm so stoked to stall my Wendy's order for 10 minutes to reduce the price of my burger.

[@jacksonoutside]

“Oh hell no I’m not going to Wendy’s for lunch anymore” that is the POINT! They’re trying to reduce restaurant traffic at peak times and increase traffic at low-demand times

[@Ryan-rm6uk]

I will devour this slop even though I have already consumed it on the VODs channel

[@irecordwithaphone1856]

You should watch the vod about an evil Japanese corporation it's pretty good

[@IdealisticDog]

Dynamic pricing like this is abusing people's time. People don't want to get in their car and drive somewhere else so you're abusing their time and ensuring they won't return.

[@fakjbf3129]

To the Google Woke AI story, it’s important to point out that before they added the hidden diversity prompts the AI was massively overcorrecting to only showing white people, even if you prompted it for a black scientist it would output a white one. These prompts were meant to correct for that and they over tuned it so it just had the opposite problem. The issue is with the AI itself not being great at following specific prompts that go against the average training data.

[@Jaguar21010]

I'm not saying you are making that up. However I'm curious if there is any actual proof of this outside of media or Google "on the record" reports. I do believe what you said is very possible, but I don't trust media outlets or giant companies, so I can't say for sure.

[@leonhardable]

do you have any source for the "only showing white people" part? complete news to me, does not fit anything i've heard or seen, but i'd be interested to learn

[@slick3996]

now they fcked up by making too (and god i hate to say the word) “woke” so it’s overly inclusive which resulted in like 300 bill$ worth of market cap gone

[@RespectTheSourceMaterial]

where di you see that? That's literally the first time i'm hearing about this. Can you link the article?

[@MrWhiteKniight]

This is a complete lie.

[@timroth5946]

Great video, loved all the visual aids Big A! One of the best MM yet in my opinion

[@hotrodhunk7389]

I'll definitely pass by Wendy's next time. I'm also paper hands... Sold at $52k... Guess hindsight is 20/20. But I made 40% so I don't feel too too bad 😂😂

[@Sn0r_lax]

I work in IT for Wendy’s. We got an email the evening this happened from the CEO basically saying “The media is lying, we’ve never even CONSIDERED this.”

[@Lewtable]

That doesn't really say anything. The fact aside that you're a random person claiming to be someone without really proving it (which you understandably can't really, being the internet and all) he himself could have been doing damage control, unless they make an official statement calling the media out and are willing to defend it they can be lying just as much as he claims the media is.

[@StarchieHalo]

I remember I was at work and ordered an uber for a 1 mile ride home (8$~) was 15$ because it's "during more active hours", waited a few minutes and it was back to normal, what a scam

[@JodyBruchon]

I stopped eating fast food because of the price hikes. I will pack string cheese and a water bottle and never go to Wendy's again.

[@aoe4_kachow]

4:19 whoa they interviewed whodat that’s so awesome

[@time-is-restored]

im so glad that woolworths story made it outside of australia, that guy dressed up as if he actually worked in the store and then made such a fool of himself he retired within like a day!! genuinely insane

[@Shadow-vd8ss]

Bro if I was standing in line and my burger became $1 more expensive I would absolutely lose my mind

[@Kam5]

honestly the US should learn from Australia's mistake with supermarkets. Stopping that merger was a step in the right direction. Legit it sucks not being able to afford groceries because of price gouging on top of inflation.

[@greed864]

The profit margins for woolworths are actually down in the last 2 years compared to where they were in the years previous. Modern economic literature mostly agrees that duopolies are no where near as bad as monopolies. The issues with duopolies is the potential of collusion (which in most western states is illegal, but still pretty hard to enforce, to quote the Sherman Antitrust act "This law prohibits conspiracies that unreasonably restrain trade. Under the Sherman Act, agreements among competitors to fix prices or wages, rig bids, or allocate customers, workers, or markets, are criminal violations.") The biggest problem with duopolies is the complete lack of innovation, not necessarily due to collusion, but simply because these 2 companies are very likely to act in similar ways. In a market with 10 companies, odds are theyll be run pretty differently leading to at least one of them trying something new for better or worse, and if it works the others will have to follow suit, but just like google has lost its edge, duopolies lead to stagnation due to the size and slowness of the massive corporate bureaucracy.

[@fakename6498]

Eat shit woolies meatrider. just because they're making less profit than they were before doesn't mean they're not making fucktons of profit. Monopoly rarely means literally one company controlls the entire market

[@ghost_ship_supreme]

lol. They really said “burgers being $15+ isn’t enough”

[@insidejoke3223]

One summer I worked really far from home in an area that was mainly warehouses. One of the only places close enough to walk for lunch was Wendy's, which was fun at first since it is/was my fav fast food place but I definitely got sick of it after the summer. Most days I brought what coins I could get my hands on and the change from my last Wendy's meal, I could usually got a combo but some days I only had enough for a fries. Surge Pricing would fuck me over so hard, so weird that it had to be Wendy's.

[@robster7787]

The moment Wendy’s take away my 4 for $4 in my area, I’m never coming back. Quite literally the only difference between the 4 for $4 and the $5 biggie bag is the extra patty in a double stack, and a slightly larger drink. If you find an incompetent employee, they would give you the small drink instead of the kids size. Alternatively, do dine-in for unlimited refills which negates the small cup.

[@57ttocs]

I’m horrified by the Kroger Albertson’s merger. They are the only full size grocery (no Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, etc.) stores within 100 miles of where I live.

[@ransomnotes666]

If wendy's is gonna be surging prices they better make sure I can pull tf out of the drive thru as soon as the surge happens.

[@Hyper_Drud]

I don’t know where you live but the Wendys where I live have curbs along the drive thru, so once you’re in that line you’re stuck until you get past the windows.

[@N0rmalName]

Why in the world did I have to use avast as my default browser on every device I own for like 2 years straight before watching this

[@donrane]

Price surging is great when it´s like gasoline, everyone follows the price changes. When seeing high prices at Wendys you just goes next door.

[@ahabsbane]

As a low volt technician who regularly contacts with Wendy's, I'll likely be part of installing these menu screens, but you can bet I'll never spend a dollar there ever again!😂

[@johnk6757]

I don't think it's offensive or that they are just being a "greedy corporation", there's some economic logic to it. However when it comes to a cheap, high volume commodity like fast food price transparency and transaction friction far outweigh the marginal efficiency gains from of dynamic pricing. I.e. nobody wants to day-trade burgers However for something more elastic and where consumers can price compare (like e.g. plane tickets) dynamic pricing actually make a lot of sense which is why we've been seeing it increasingly more in some areas.

[@onegrumpyboi2914]

11:25 there is also foodland in south aus. and also aldi but yeah woolies and coles are the big ones and they are shit as

[@Gregorious4]

I appreciate the overcooked music during the Wendy's portion. 👏editor

[@HowVeryInterestingYT]

Dude I loved this vid. It's snappy, fun and upbeat. New sub :D Also, Australia has more than 2 supermarkets - IGA, Aldi & even Costco but Coles and Woolies make up at least 50% or more of the entire market share and us aussies are sick of it. Cost of everything has gone up massively here. I do feel bad for our friends in the UK though and specifically in Birmingham. Their council is pretty much bankrupt so they put their council rates up like 23% to try to claw back some money. This is ridiculous but Victoria (the state I live in in Australia) has more debt than NSW, ACT and QLD COMBINED so it's likely home owners will cop that here too :D Fun times!

[@At724-ch1rp]

Australian grocery prices have been messed up for the last decade, been brutal here

[@sauce8277]

Most fast food places don't actually exist. If you are still spending the amount these places are asking for the weight/content of food they are giving you, you are are terrible with money. Most of them should be out of business by now but the new generation born into these prices were not told by their parents what is normal and what is unacceptable. There is a reason when you are shopping at a grocery store, you should be looking at the cent-per-ounce supplied on the tag and comparing with the healthiest option to find the best balance for brand. No different with fast food.

[@ItzKryptek64]

Price increases over the years have astounded me… I am a general manager for a sonic location in Texas and I lose my mind sometimes when I look at the price for some of these peoples orders. Our bags of Ice used to sell for 99 cents just 3 years ago and now they are close to $4… even just our burgers and sandwiches are over priced… a regular cheese burger by itself is ~$7 and our chicken sandwich and toaster are close to $14…

[@b130610]

The thing with the grocery stores already happened in my city. We only had Albertsons and Safeway. They merged, and now we have two grocery stores that are owned by the same corporation literally across the street from each other, and no other major grocery stores within an hour drive.

[@ayoCC]

I think that we should automate monopoly restrictions. If someone is in a monopolistic position in a basics industry (food, housing, energy), they have like 5 years to cash out, but afterwards they get peofit capped, unless they find a way to split up. Either let go of a daughter firm, regionally split, or create a separate root company that must not compete with the companies that buy from them.

[@madd.villain]

There's a local bar that does this where I live called "the Exchange", really cool concept for alcoholic drinks but horrible for every day food consumption. lol

[@bobbodaskank]

That Woolworths CEO interview clip was so bad, I was joking in my head that he was going to pull a "this interview is over!" tantrum and he ACTUALLY DID. But him sitting back down was wild.

[@noottoot1523]

I live in Australia and I can corroborate that the grocery prices are absolutely insane, especially to a university student. I am currently studying full time, so I have to live off of youth allowance, which is for me $700 a fortnight. The crazy thing is my rent is $600, so I have $100 bucks to spend for 2 weeks, where buying chicken costs $12. The worst part is that I actually have it pretty good since I live in the outskirts of Sydney and not the CBD

[@legojedimasterplokoon2173]

Rent is 600 a fortnight or 600 a month? Is rent charged by fortnight in Australia?

[@altmaster3288]

@@legojedimasterplokoon2173 Rent is normally charged by the week, sometimes fortnightly. I imagine OP is just converting his rent for direct comparison to the government allowance, which is metered by the fortnight.

[@legojedimasterplokoon2173]

@@altmaster3288 interesting. I'm in Raleigh (second fastest growing city in US but still not huge) attending university and I pay 800 a month. Rent is always monthly in the US, afaik. Crazy how much more rent is there then here

[@misledpoet]

@@legojedimasterplokoon2173 The reason for this is that Australians were paid weekly for decades, so the rent was charged at the same frequency. Fortnightly paychecks here in Australia have only been a thing in the last 20 years, but the vast majority of people still get paid weekly. Easier to calculate budgets with the same frequency for income/costs. You also get extra pay/cost periods with the weekly model vs the monthly one. There are 13 4-week periods in the year vs 12 months.

[@au1317]

As someone who only goes to Wendys when they have their buy-one-get-one deal on Dave's Singles, I don't care at all

[@wafikojulio9028]

wendy baconator options would have been absolutely CRAZY

[@rudebodega]

Bold of Wendy's to assume we wouldn't just leave when it got that busy. Even now if the car line reaches the speaker box I go somewhere else, no way I'm sticking around through a spontaneous price hike

[@paceypastry1473]

It's disgusting that Atrioc would call Woolies an abhorrent term such as "Woolworths"

[@mm-yt8sf]

it's frustrating because things are just cast as different labels, so the dangers of the power of monopolies (which at some point was agreed on enough to pass laws) is also seen as the fruits of being "smart in business". gouging sounds bad if you're a buyer, but "the american dream" if you're a shareholder... it'd be nice if we all realized there's an optimum somewhere not at the extremes and set about trying to determine where they are in different times, industries, economic metrics because all these things change over time so if we decided what symptoms to aim or and avoid it can be tweaked periodically and not have to devolve into a tug of war but anchored in extreme ideals. yeah hearing about surge pricing for wendy's really puts me off going there..not just on principle but practically. since i don't drive why would i put the significant effort to travel to one just to see how much the prices are above normal and then decided i don't want to eat there and have wasted time and effort or determine it's barely tolerable and feel grumpy about my choice to eat there. is the surge money going into having significantly lower baseline prices? like 50 cents a burger + surge. it then becomes gambling and not something i want to do with limited time for lunch.

[@5226-p1e]

Basically what happened to Venezuela is going to happen here, suddenly one Burger will cost $1,000, and most restaurants will go out of business because the price was just simply too fucking high, nobody can afford it.

[@happilygrimnate1628]

I do wonder why governments don’t put caps on how much they can charge you for an item. Like “you can’t charge more than 55% of what you paid for the item” because I know a lot of stuff is getting charged for like 55-150%+ whatever they paid to acquire said items.

[@flea8332]

To clarify, Wendy's will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn't use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice,” a spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. They added there are “no plans” to raise prices at high-demand times

[@SayidM687]

The last time I watched Marketing Monday was a few weeks ago and I still cannot believe this episode came out on a Monday!!!

[@bradleyjenkins2271]

That avast thing is kinda nuts Like, we had those in Highschool on every computer, imagine the amount of data they ACTUALLY have

[@user-uv2cp1qd1j]

Fr. They were used on every computer (or any device that goes online) in my university. Talking thousands of different PCs with confidential info on like half

[@iheartlofi]

Remember, Kmart and Blockbusters disappeared😂

[@TheCraterGames]

9:50 Meanwhile in Poland, two biggest grocery stores are fighting for the lowest price, which mean, some products are cheaper than production cost. It's funny to watch, shame it won't last for long

[@deckboys9867]

Another thing with aus is that we FINALLY started a royal commission into price gouging from the big two grocers. It’s publishing the first of its findings soo and hopefully we can get some actual change from that

[@ayoCC]

When the market consolidates into two players, I guess it's time to profit cap them, or break them up. You can regionally break it up, or based on something else. Kroger North and Kroger South or something like that yeah

[@Steenern]

This video impressively showcases a thorough exploration of the topic, demonstrating a remarkable depth of research and knowledge. Bravo

[@nebula8893]

You better have watched ts live cause you could not have finished the video by the time you commented

[@irecordwithaphone1856]

Oh God bro... The bots no longer have NSFW profile pictures, now they're just pretending to be normal accounts. They're evolving

[@Steenern]

@@nebula8893 I watched the vod 💀💀

[@awesome5513]

Great video, love the wins n fails

[@jacobbarnett64]

You ain’t seen it yet

[@J0seph_Mother]

Just too add onto the Australian stuff, we also have aldi and IGA but they're miniscule compared to woolworths and Coles. Also Coles well known phrase is "down down, prices are down" haven't seen that one in a few years, I wonder why?

[@karmatraining]

Surge pricing is super unpopular in Australia, it's made a lot of people think twice about using Uber. It's like a slap in the fact.

[@Madd_Jack]

Your bid of $8.95 for a normal hamburger has not been accepted at this time.

[@tgamagedon]

I always hate government officials who retire and then be like "somebody should really be doing something about this" after quitting the best position in the country to do something about it.

[@jsnlgrrtt]

Albertson's already ate up safeway, after that happened there was a noticeable increase in prices

[@geauxracerx]

This is what happens when you keep promoting the night manager that tells drive through customers: “we are out of food right now” Same result people drive away not buying your product.

[@hrhux]

as a consumer if I dont know how much something is going to cost me I simply wont go

[@WARnTEA]

I don’t even buy delivery because I hate the idea of being forced to tip the driver. Fuck it I’ll save $10 and go get it my self. I also avoid restaurants unless its a special group event. I can’t bring myself to overpay for food. The only place I happily tip is at the barber/hairdresser and thats mostly because I feel bad for waiting a long time in between haircuts, and to reward a good job.