That's my complaint. I don't mind subpar food once in a great while. But I went there for lunch a few weeks ago and it was over $8 and I felt nasty and was hungry a couple of hours later. I could have gone to the grocery store deli and gotten a hot lunch combo for $6. Or a tasty burrito from the local Mexican place for $3.50 and an iced tea from the convenience store for $1.
In short, it's not just that their food isn't that great (it's not)... it's that it's too expensive to be that bad.
The McD app has coupons that can get you some decent quantities for food for pretty cheap, or at least it did when it first came out. I haven't used it in a while so they might have cut back on some of the deals they were offering.
It was a double quarter pounder and was over $5 alone. The medium shake was another 2.50+ and with tax it was well over $8.00.
The point is... it was too much money for the quality of the food. There are better alternatives.
A cheeseburger, water and small fries is < $3, and that keeps me going for several hours from lunch to dinner. I don't go often, but go specifically for pricing. If I'm planning to spend > $6 on a meal, I go elsewhere.
When I was an idiot, I used to eat a lot at McDonalds. I had such a high metabolism that I could just burn off the calories without even trying, then when I got older, that didn't work any longer.
It's pretty easy to blow past 3000 calories if you eat more than 2x at McD's.
They sell milk and OJ and I often buy that from them for a light meal on the go.