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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

> I know a business coach who regularly asks his audience "Who here makes better burgers than McDonalds?". When half the audience raises their hand, he asks them why they don't outsell this giant company.

There is indeed a lesson here, but which one do you think it is? It's certainly not that McDonald's makes better (or "simpler") hamburgers: once you taste good hamburgers you can never go back to McDonald's (and yes, I make better hamburgers too, even though mine won't win any prizes!). To me, the lesson is that there's more to success than product quality. The established brand matters, the scale at which you can sell a (possibly inferior) product matters, how low you can get away with paying your employees matters, how well you can survive PR disasters matters, etc.

If you had to make burgers, would you rather make cheap and mediocre ones, or would you rather enjoy making premium burgers? :)

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> It's certainly not that McDonald's makes better (or "simpler") hamburgers

At the risk of derailing the thread, that would be the lesson I wish people would take away from that example.

Criticizing fast food like that is dumb signalling IMO; McDonald's!hamburger != homemade!hamburger. It's an entirely different product sharing the same name and some of the ingredients. It tastes different, and has a different form factor. People like this, even if many don't want to admit it to others (or themselves). When I go for a McD's hamburger instead of a foodtruck one, or when I say I prefer chain restaurant pizza over a home made one, it's because I want a different product. Treating the two as the same category is like treating tea and coffee as the same thing.

>People like this, even if many don't want to admit it to others (or themselves)

People only like the cheapness and the convenience (and perhaps the no-surprise factor).

Everything else being the same (price and time to prepare), nobody would eat McDonalds vs a quality burger (except the kind of people who eat Hot Pockets for the taste, but that's a much smaller demographic than McDonalds buyers).

I disagree. I like the taste of McD!burger and I like the taste of foodtruck!burger. They are entirely different tastes; sometimes I want to experience the former, sometimes the latter.

No-surprise factor isn't that big of an issue if you're buying; restaurants tend to have consistent food quality & taste too.

Disagree. I’m not a hardcore foodie, but I enjoy the entire spectrum of food, from fast-food to food trucks to homemade to Michelin 3-star restaurants. And sometimes I want Taco Bell, or yes, even McDonalds.

Tons of the chefs who work at or own those Michelin starred restaurants would agree with you - they almost universally love to eat low tier, mass market fast food

The fact that there is a mass(ive) market for fast food is proof alone that people like it (enough to eat it and spend their money on it). I’m with any of the posters above who like fancy burgers as well as fast-food burgers.

Where McD’s really shines, though, is their breakfast offerings. And with that said, I think I will head there now for a quick breakfast (I live ~5 blocks from McDs).

I remember watching a TV program where they took some typical fast food (McDonalds, KFC, etc) and presented it on a plate in a way you would expect in a more expensive restaurant. Everybody who tasted it rated it higher than food from the the fast food chain.

It seems many or even most people can't tell the difference and the ambience and service is as important as the food.

Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" show did a similar experiment with "bottled" (actually, tap) water. It turns out most people rate tap water better if it's served in a bottle and told it comes from a natural spring.

It surprises me in the case of frozen patties like McDonald's though. A frozen patty looks nothing at all like an actual burger made from ground meat. It tastes differently as well, of course, but what matters is that it looks completely different!

Plenty of places can get me a significantly better burger in under a minute. McDonald's is not high up inside its category.

The fries are great though. Sometimes I go there for the fries, and occasionally I get a burger on the side

You should visit Belgium.

This is what kills me: McDonald's doesn't even make good burgers for its price range and speed of service. Plenty of competitors where I live make equally mediocre burgers cheaper and faster. Of course, if you wanted to enjoy a good burger you wouldn't go to any of them, McD's included.

It's all about the brand, unfortunately.

Among my circle of friends it is. People either like it or not, and if they like let's say the BigMac they either want that or not, but wouldn't really substitute it with a Burger King Whopper or a KFC Grander. They usually like that too (more or less, depending on the individual), but that's then a conscious decision to okay, let's eat something different. Even if the burger is in the name.

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