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Comment by SirMaster | Hacker News Reader

What's luxurious about fast food? I can't believe 80% of people would think that.

Got to be some weird biased study or data sample or something.

Or perhaps you don't understand the distinction between the meaning of 'luxury' and 'luxurious'.

If I am on a strict diet and treat myself to ice cream once a month max, that is a luxury, in the sense that I don't consume it often, because it is expensive in terms of my caloric budget.

It doesn't mean that ice cream itself is considered luxurious by the general public.

I don't think there's really a difference between luxury and luxurious.

I think my confusion was caused by a difference of calling the food a luxury vs calling the act of having the food a luxury.

Nearly 80% of Americans Say HAVING Fast Food Is Now a Luxury.

Nearly 80% of Americans Say Fast Food Is Now a Luxury.

If it was worded the first way, I don't think I would have questioned it the way that I did.

What about: "Nearly 80% of Americans Say Fast Food Is Now a Luxury Good" ?

Because that's what it's short for when used standalone about a product like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_goods

That still doesn't make much sense at least to me.

I don't at all view fast food, the item itself as a luxury item.

But I can see how the act or experience of having fast food and all that comes with that process as being a luxurious process or experience. The speed, convenience and simplicity of having it could be a luxury.

But I don't think for example if you presented a bunch of people with a buffet of food items (ranging from fast food to home cooked dishes to nice restaurant dishes) that anyone would classify the fast food items as luxury items.

That's how it makes sense in my head. Show a person a buffet of food that contains fast food items and chef cooked items and ask them which ones are luxury food items. I don't think 80% of people would include the big mac and fries in their list of luxury food items.

But ask a busy person if the act of grabbing mcdonalds from a drive thru on the way from place to place is a luxury, then I can see more people saying yes.

So to me it's the act or process that is the luxury, not the fast food items themselves.

Uhh the price? What used to be a $4 meal is now $12. Doesn’t matter for developer salary, but a huge deal for the other 90%.

So simply being expensive is what makes something luxurious? I thought it had to do with the quality and the experience it provides.

IMO luxurious food would be made from high quality ingredients and have an appealing presentation and an appealing consumption experience. And sure, to do all that would made it expensive, but expense is the result of luxury, not the cause.

Just because someone decides to charge a lot for some crap doesn't make it luxurious IMO.

An expensive thing that someone likes is definitionally a luxury. It's an implicitly subjective term. An expensive pair of shoes that are nearly all markup are still a luxury even though they're cheap to produce.

I guess I am surprised that 80% of people like fast food so much to consider it a luxury in the first place.

I consider fine dining a luxury. Fast food doesn't come close to being considered a luxury to me and I am not in any way rich.

In this context, "luxury" is being used in it's main definition:

> "the quality possessed by something that is excessively expensive"

Sounds like you haven't found the coupon section in the McDonald's app. They raised the menu prices to make you use it.

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