The actual problem is fairly simple: Over the past three years McDonald's pricing has become delusional, especially considering the quality of the food. They were able to coast on consumer habit for a while, but their salad days are over (literally and figuratively).
To keep it a bit tech-related, their mobile app is terrible, even by fast-food app standards. It's not native, it's janky and slow, it tends to crash if (to provide a real example) you don't give it two seconds to increment a quantity, and the UX design is embarrassing. They also removed customers' ability to edit or cancel orders, even though no food prep is started until you arrive and users must verbally communicate the alpha-numeric mobile order code (even though the app knows that you're there).
> even though no food prep is started until you arrive
This is my biggest pet peeve about both the McDonalds and Chic Fil A apps. I have about a 3 minute drive to both restaurants and hate that I can’t just order on the app and have the order ready by the time I get there. I honestly have no idea what the point of a mobile order is if I have to wait 10 minutes in the curbside pickup spots after arriving when I could have gone through the drive through just as fast.
Huh, the Chick-Fil-A nearest my house has a rack that they put the completed orders on near the door. If you mobile order and then head that way, it will almost always be sitting there waiting on you when you arrive (but I'm farther than 3 minutes away).
I haven't gotten curbside from them since COVID lockdown, though.
I agree that their app isn't particularly good, but have you ever used the Subway app or even their website for a mobile order? I think it's the slowest and jankiest app I have ever used. It honestly takes like 5-10 minutes to order two subs that I have saved as favorites.
There seems to be a belief in the fast food industry that if there's not an immediate negative impact on sales from a price increase that there won't be any future demand destruction from it.
Last time I used the McDonald’s app here in Québec, I was surprised to see only ⅔ of the translation keys were actually translated into French. Those_snake_cased_keys_everywhere interspersed with successfully translated French values.