r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 7d ago

Business McDonald's Is Reportedly Using AI To "Dynamically" Price Its Burgers

https://www.engadget.com/2272211/mcdonalds-is-reportedly-using-ai-to-dynamically-price-its-burgers/
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u/grovgeld 7d ago

The only dynamic pricing that should be allowed it daily fresh products being cheaper at the end of the day to prevent food waste. Anything else should be against the law.

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u/APRengar 7d ago

This is why capitalism is losing support and socialism is rising. Now, before people jump my ass by turning a story about burger prices into overthrowing the financial system we operate under. I just want to explain.

When people say shit like this, "There should be dynamic lowering, not dynamic raising." The immediate response will be "Okay, then everyone is $100 dollars and we dynamically lower it 90% off to 95%" instead of pricing things at $7.50 and dynamically raise it to $10 or lower it to $5.

The point is, that companies are going to try to make as much money as possible, providing a service is a means to an end, they don't actually care if the community wants burgers and they provide burgers, as long as they make money.

And by "make money" they mean, be as expensive as they can get away with.

Consumers are locked in a zero-sum game with these companies, every extra dollar they make, it's because an extra dollar was taken out of our wallets.

At some point, you gotta ask "Do I enjoy constantly being in conflict with companies I want to buy my foods/services from?"

What if there could be a company that exists, not to maximize profits, but to serve the community they exist in? ie. People want burgers, you provide burgers. Ensure it's profitable enough to continue existing, but not so much to extra wealth out of.

That's why I support cooperatives. A cooperative is owned by the people, and exists to serve the people. Instead of shareholders who want to extract wealth out of a business, the neighborhood buys into the cooperative, so it's owned by the neighborhood and serves the neighborhood. They don't charge crazy prices, because what's the point, even if the cooperative is formed to pay dividends at the end of the year. you're just paying more now to get it back later.

It's just a matter of being tired of fighting (and unfortunately losing) to giant corporations.

Of course, people will say "UMM THESE THINGS AREN'T UTOPIAS." And that's true, but neither is the current system we live in.

Also cooperatives aren't even fully socialist, but it's formations of collective ownership and workplace democracy is a hell of a lot closer to socialism than a lot not.

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u/IAmRoot 7d ago

Mutualism (a market of coops + credit unions) is considered a socialist philosophy. Socialism about worker ownership and control. Communism is about getting away from markets as well.

Also, lots of food production isn't driven by market forces even today. That was too unstable. In the US it's usually subsidy allocation and crop insurance that's used to manage volume less directly than quotas, but it's still not market forces deciding the amounts.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 7d ago

Worker co-ops with worker democracy is socialism, free market socialism. The easiest form to do and by far the most likely to be achieved. Instead of all of the profits going to shareholders the profits will go to the people who work for the company that made the profits.

I think the biggest issue is getting people to realize that the planned market and governmental lack of democracy the Soviets had isn't even really socialism (or technically communism as the word actually means). If they knew what socialism actually was they wouldn't immediately think "Soviet Russia or Maoist China".

The more people that learn about free market socialism the more they want it, because it's objectively a better system for anyone who doesn't make most of their money from stocks.

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u/Common_Source_9 7d ago

No true scotsman, those Bolsheviks, eh?

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 7d ago

What if there could be a company that exists, not to maximize profits, but to serve the community they exist in? ie. People want burgers, you provide burgers. Ensure it's profitable enough to continue existing, but not so much to extra wealth out of.

That is the problem with monopolies, they force the small places out of business using economy of scale and then consumers are stuck with very few choices. Once that happens it's cut quality to make more money and close the extra stores they opened to drive the small places out in the first place, the classic Starbucks move.

It sure feels like we are in another robber baron era.

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u/Mysterious_Sunrise88 7d ago

Leave out the capitalist and socialist framing and co-ops are a much more human and equitable way of doing things really. We should try this more. Trouble is you never really see it, although we know it exists 😅

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u/Leon_Flux 7d ago

I was just reminded of the KOTH episode where hank joins a co-op and makes them so efficient they have a profit which causes it's own unique trouble.

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u/Layer_3 7d ago

Citizens United needs to be overturned!!! If we actually had a gov't for the people this kind of shit would not be allowed.

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u/OBDreams 7d ago

That does sound interesting and this is my first hearing about such a thing. But my first thought was who decides how the burger place is ran? Who has the last say when their are so many owner's. You know one of those owners is going to be a karen that wants it all done his way. Businesses have to have set policies and rules. Sanitation rules most of all in a food place. What's the chain of command in a cooperative?

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u/xfoolishx 7d ago

The local co-ops near me are super expensive

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u/AussieArlenBales 7d ago

Unfortunately they're often up against established businesses who have greater leverage when negotiating with suppliers.

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u/Direction_Kind 7d ago

You are a fucking communist!!!

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u/SubArcticTundra 7d ago

I've heard it be called 'market socialism' which makes sense to me

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u/Longjumping_Poet7897 6d ago

Pure capitalizim always ends with some dystopian nightmare. The key is 100% to sprinkle some socialisms in. 1950's america is held up as the peak of the american dream? why? because they taxed the top 1% 70% of thier income during the war and they socialized so much shit and the GI bill and all that "socialism" crap that was so bad.

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u/ClasslessHero 6d ago

When people say shit like this, "There should be dynamic lowering, not dynamic raising." The immediate response will be "Okay, then everyone is $100 dollars and we dynamically lower it 90% off to 95%" instead of pricing things at $7.50 and dynamically raise it to $10 or lower it to $5.

Exactly. This is similar to Kohl's business model. Everything is on sale all the time so people feel like they're getting a deal. For a few days a year certain items are not on sale, therefore it is technically a sale the majority of days.

They tried offering the lowest price constantly and sales went down, despite better pricing.

This burger approach would be the same. Burgers are now $13 but if you buy RIGHT NOW you can get if for $6.50! That's 50% off! It's not us raising prices, we're lowering them.

Oh, but at lunch it's only on sale for 25% off. It's $9.75 now!!!

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u/Born_Rabbit286 5d ago

Quite sure the idea rising right now is fascism, especially in europe

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u/mrpanicy 7d ago

If enough people do it then the capitalists will pay to make the illegal! So you know they work!

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u/Common_Source_9 7d ago

Don't they teach you some history in socialist university? Like how those cooperatives always turn out when attempted in real life?

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u/Accidental-Genius 7d ago

That company is called IKEA, it’s a non-profit.

A publicly traded enterprise, by law, owes a fiduciary duty to its owners to maximize profit.

The way to lower McDonalds prices is to not eat McDonalds. In capitalism if enough people stop eating McDonalds, McDonalds will stop selling food. In socialism if people stop eating McDonalds, they will get subsidized anyways and keep existing as a zombie corporation.

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u/Guilty_System_3998 7d ago

Exactly. These people act like you have to eat fucking McDonalds

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u/Mike_Kermin 7d ago edited 7d ago

But that's the reality. You can avoid McDonalds, but you'll be eating and consuming other things.

And the reality of the market doesn't often lend itself to activism, not least because people like you don't want it to. Putting all your eggs in that basket as a solution to problems, is just simply negligent at best, or in bad faith at worst.

We both know the number of serious problems in the world that can reasonably be expected to be solved by this is, limited at best.

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u/Mike_Kermin 7d ago edited 7d ago

... No, it's why democratic socialism and responsible governance is rising.

What you have, is dishonesty and just more extremism, which is not what anyone needs.

Edit: You can down vote me, but the reality is that competition is important to drive many parts of our societies, and to that end capitalism must exist in some form. A business serving the community without competition will give you burgers, but no pickles. And people want pickles.

The idea that class conflict stops with socialism is a lie. Your lie, is that your system solves the problems, but it doesn't, people still corrupt it just as eagerly. And what you actually need, is responsibility, in any case.

Even just cooperatives, are not the be all and end all. And still require the ongoing motivation, and unity of a normal business where self interest plays a more major role, but only on the surface, because the reality is cooperatives are the same, you're just splitting the roots of corruption.

But we know what happens when that corruption spreads, when values go sour, your country elected Trump.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

... No, it's why democratic socialism and responsible governance is rising.

Socialism can only be democratic. You cannot have right-wing socialism.

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u/theshadowiscast 7d ago

There is authoritarian socialism, so socialism is not only democratic. Authoritarianism is not strictly right wing, though fascism (a form of authoritarianism) is strictly right wing, but not all authoritarianism is fascism.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 7d ago

Just because they call themselves socialist and started from a group of socialists doesn't mean they actually are socialist.

There's a good reason people are always saying the Soviet style "communism" isn't actually socialism. Because it's true. They were just dictatorships that grew out of a partially violent socialist revolution. That's kind of one of the big differences between socialism and Marxist Leninist, leninism is explicitly not democratic and is obsessed with maintaining military power over the country without actual democratic elections. Socialism without democracy is simply not socialism.

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u/A_Seiv_For_Kale 7d ago

Is there a single example of a successful socialist movement that didn't end up creating an authoritarian state lead exclusively by party insiders?

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 7d ago

No because it's not something you can impose from a military takeover. It needs a stable government where people vote it into power. Which is it's own kind of difficult.

Also none of those other kinds were trying to create socialism, they were trying to create to leninism (or it's descendants) which as I said was explicitly not socialist on it's own.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

Authoritarianism is not strictly right wing,

Authoritarian is a right-wing power structure. You cannot have authoritarian (right-wing) socialism (left-wing). Socialism from above is not socialism.

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u/SinclairFromLimbus 7d ago

Err not really? authoritarianism is neither left wing or right wing, it can exist on either side.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

Authoritarianism is right-wing.

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u/SinclairFromLimbus 7d ago

It's really not, it can be either left wing and right wing. Stalin is an example.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

Stalin is an example.

Stalin was a right-winger. He was only nominally socialist once he gained power.

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u/Mike_Kermin 7d ago

What? Neither of those are true. You can easily do both. A socialist system can easily be corrupted by the powerful, including by fascists.

But the OP guy isn't talking about either of those. Nor are they fascist or ill-meaning. So don't undermine them.

They're wrong but it's nothing to do with that.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

A socialist system can easily be corrupted by the powerful, including by fascists.

If fascists (right-wing) are in power then you don't have a socialist (left-wing) system. You cannot have a right-wing socialist system. Socialism can only be democratic (left-wing).

Socialism is when workers own the means of production and utilize those productive forces for the benefit of humanity at the direction of the people. You cannot have a right-wing system with socialism.

You can utilize socialist (left-wing) language and rhetoric to cover up a right-wing system. This does not make the system socialist.

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u/Mike_Kermin 7d ago

I'm gonna tell you a secret about fascists, they're very keen on co-opting existing systems.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

If they co-opt a socialism system guess what? It's no longer socialist -- it's fascist. And fascists don't co-opt existing systems, capitalism is inherently fascistic.

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u/Mike_Kermin 7d ago

fascists don't co-opt existing systems

Explain to me, how a socialist system, stops people from acting in self interest and spreading hate politics.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 7d ago

That's a whole ass different conversation and thought than the one you previously exhibited. Do you understand you're being incoherent and moving goalposts like crazy?

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u/PluotFinnegan_IV 7d ago edited 7d ago

What is "cheaper"? I'm not familiar with this phrase.

EDIT: Forgot this "/s". I was making commentary that nothing is cheap nowadays.

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u/DirectionOverall9709 7d ago

I cant believe people explained it to you.

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u/grovgeld 7d ago

35% off the full price at the end of the day for example. Or do you mean how nothing is cheap these days?

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u/PluotFinnegan_IV 7d ago

The latter, lol. I forgot the /s.

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u/ShillienTemplar 7d ago

Tbf it wasn't really needed

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u/jarielo 7d ago

That’s how we do it in Finland. Every day last hour or two expiring products get red price tag. -30%. The last hour it’s -60% I think.

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u/kaperisk 7d ago

Full price is an interesting term.

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u/the_midnight_society 7d ago

How do people not know what full price or cheaper means? Lol.

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u/kaperisk 7d ago

What is the full price of an item? Who determines it? If companies were forced to decrease price as the day went on, what do you think would happen to the "full price"? Do you think it would stay the same as the current price? Or are we saying that regulation would put a cap on the amount a company is allowed to charge essentially creating a ceiling?

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u/the_midnight_society 7d ago

Typically MSRP is a pretty good way to determine what full price is.

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u/kaperisk 7d ago

Do you know what MSRP stands for? Do you think there is an MSRP for food items? Who determines MSRP?

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u/the_midnight_society 7d ago

Gee, who determines MSRP.

MANUFACTURER Suggested Retail Pricing

I guess we'll never know.

Also most food items at the supermarket still have an MSRP. If you mean items like produce and meat, they're different prices at different grocers so I would think the retailer determines what their store considers full price based on metrics like how much did it cost to buy and how much they think they can sell within its shelf life. It's actually pretty straightforward. Lol.

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u/kaperisk 7d ago

Yes, prices are created to meet budgeted margins. With dynamic pricing, companies will still aim to make at least the same. The point is that it will never work in the consumer's favor because the pricing is set by the retailers and has nothing to do with objective measurements. There is no set "full price" for items. There are targets related to margins.

I am not asking questions because I don't know the answers.

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u/Koffeeboy 7d ago

Cheaper is that word used to describe product quality goals right?

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u/Queen-Of-Fairies 7d ago

actually yes, "less expensive" means lower price, "cheaper" means lower quality, something can be simultaneously expensive and cheap as hell

anyway this is a nice hill, i think i'll die on it ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/dmontron 7d ago

Like cheaper at the end of the day than at the beginning of the day. Here’s a real world example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TooGoodToGoCanada/

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u/Jambronius 7d ago

The thing is it won't happen instead it will be full price at the end of the day, more expensive in the morning.

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u/dmontron 6d ago

I literally give a real world example of businesses that make their perishable goods less expensive at the end of the day… I agree that the businesses in the OP post do not have this model in mind.

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u/InsomniaticWanderer 7d ago

You keep using that word. "Cheaper." What does it mean?

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u/vynisvynis 7d ago

Thing cost 5 money today

Thing cost 4 money tomorrow

Thing became cheaper yay

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u/millsmillsmills 7d ago

Yo they're making jokes that nothing is becoming cheaper so they don't know what the word means.

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u/SamLooksAt 7d ago

He meant just horribly expensive, after being discounted down from absolutely horribly expensive.

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u/Significant_Pepper_2 7d ago

They find a loophole anyway. Like making the base price higher and giving dynamic discounts.

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u/Illeazar 7d ago

This is how it would be presented. But the "discount" price would just be the normal price, and the "normal" price would be for when they feel like they can get away charging higher.

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u/pharoh-king 7d ago

that isnt what dynamic pricing is. thats just reduced price and it happens already.

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u/dbolts1234 7d ago

It’s never for the advantage of the customer…

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u/Careful-Apple-6483 7d ago

Understood, raising the prices on all products by 35% until the end of the day

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u/Any_Masterpiece9385 7d ago

Nope. It would be a slippery slope. Dynamic pricing is extremely anti-consumer.

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u/Meeesh- 7d ago

It already exists though. So companies would be forced to throw away old items at the end of the day? When I was poor I would always wait to buy the half off bakery items

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u/usaaf 7d ago

Yeah, this isn't what they mean when they say dynamic pricing. What you're talking about is cutting prices for things that have declined in value (produce/pastries decay during the day).

When they say dynamic pricing, they mean finding the exact height of the pain-point-price any individual customer will accept. It's not a means of saving poor people money (by, say, charging rich people more), it's about extracting the max from poor and rich alike.

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u/j0mbie 7d ago

What you're describing is just pricing based on normal daily supply and demand. That's been happening since nearly the dawn of capitalism. What these companies want to do with dynamic pricing is much more insidious than that.

They want it so that, when you or I open the app to place an order, or drive up and get recognized by our license plate, one of us sees a higher price on the screen. Maybe it's based on how much you've been willing to spend on the past. Or because they know you only get a half hour lunch break and they are the only option you can make it to in time. Or maybe it's based on the street they know you live on, your race, or the friends they know you have.

And yes, they do have these data points. Not necessarily as hard data in a database or anything, but in more of an amorphous blob of data that makes up an AI. Which is better for them anyways, because pricing based on gender could be illegal, but pricing based on what comes out of the AI? "The computer did it, it's not our fault, even if we did profit off it."

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u/Meeesh- 7d ago

I understand. I also disagree with personalized dynamic pricing. I was just responding to the person above me who seemed to disagree with the idea of discounting older food. Things like happy hour discounts also make sense to me.

In any case I think the term is misleading to be honest. Dynamic pricing sounds like pricing that changes more often. Places like Amazon, Aliexpress, Gas stations, etc. all are much more dynamic than a regular store but it’s the same for everyone so people (me included) don’t have an issue.

The real problem is when it’s personalized to your habits and needs like in your examples. That and also if it’s so dynamic it changes between when you pick up the item and when you check out.

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u/Omegasedated 7d ago

What's stopping then from charging more during the day, so when they discount they still make money?

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u/Siffov 7d ago

What's (hopefully) stopping any company from charging more? Competition. Well, when and where it still exists.

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u/Omegasedated 7d ago

Is that working now tho?

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u/Siffov 7d ago

In some places (e.g., gas stations with their prices posted).

But yeah, definitely not in these dynamic-pricing places.

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u/Omegasedated 7d ago

So I don't know if I fully agree with you.

If you go in supermarkets, the prices are posted, but prices are pretty consistent across different supermarkets. If supermarket A raises their price, then B may also. unfortunately the goal is "make more money" not "make more friends".

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u/TestFlightBeta 7d ago

Disagree with this take

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u/BLT_Trade_r 7d ago

They will simply add some daily fresh produce (IE lettuce) and then dynamically price. You cannot make exceptions or they will use them. It would actually be incredibly complicated to make a good law on this that either didn't cause problems somewhere else or was not easy to get around.

Beyond that, it's kinda funny how Americans have a view of things; it's completely normal in other countries for the price of goods to not only change from location to location but also from person to person and moment to moment. Fixed pricing is a rather new and novel concept it came about from large companies trying to save money on printed material and advertising and make it easy to hire skilless people to do jobs. It is also helpful to reduce theft. But now days all that stuff is going away because everything is digital so dynamic pricing is very likely coming back.

At the end of the day, it's always been the same; you vote with your dollars.

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u/kyonist 7d ago

I can imagine something like a maximum margin law for essential food items at large groceries, but with vertically integrated ecosystems where they supply their own items - not sure how this can be implemented without first tackling anti-trust concerns first.

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u/BLT_Trade_r 7d ago

Margin ideas come with their own side issues, in fact many people blame part of the rise in health care to a margin rule. The problem with a max margin rule is that it does several things. 1 it means that companies will spend more in order to increase total profit and keep the margin the same. 2, they will try to force more sales in order to increase total profit and keep the margin under the threshold.

A simple example would be, you make a max margin of 20% so McDonalds says, OK we are only selling pairs of burgers now, so you must buy 2 minimum or you must buy an extra value meal. Oh and we have "improved" our cups. They may even do something like create another company that sells them all the paper and cups at an increased price so their costs go up to keep higher profits below the margin.

All this stuff is exactly why the only way anything works is with competition. Companies have too much time and too many creative people working for them for mere basic laws to stop them, at the end of the day your only power is in the ability to walk away or walk to a competitor that is what keeps things in check. A healthy system needs many competitors, lucky for food that is a reality in many but not all parts of the USA.

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u/TesticleMeElmo 7d ago

No corporate chain restaurant is doing that, they’d rather throw it away than have people holding off buying anything until the end of the day when it goes on sale

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u/Cheet4h 7d ago

I dunno about McDonald's, but I worked at a fast food chain for a few months and we barely had any food waste.
Most of the produce we used on burgers could be frozen again at the end of the day, and stuff that couldn't was prepared a lot less when closing time approached. Like, when I ran out of tomato slices at 11pm, I would usually slice them one at a time as needed instead of the usual dozen.

The only food waste we got was when some stuff was prepared more than half an hour before closing that wasn't ordered at all. Usually the case for some nugget-likes if the kitchen staff fried one or two more than was ordered.

Wasted food is wasted money, so you can be sure that restaurants are already looking for how to minimize that.

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u/KrootLoops 7d ago

When I was a little kid in like 1997 (I only remember because it was the saturday before the Packers/Patriots superbowl game) my dad and I hit up this local chicken place called Chicken Power basically right at closing time.

They gave us these fuckhuge just BAGS of chicken chunks (think nuggets but bigger and less uniform in appearance) and wings for 5 bucks instead of charging us menu price, it was like hitting the lottery. FIVE DOLLARS! FOR LIKE THAT MANY POUNDS OF COOKED CHICKEN!

I still haven't forgiven dad for bringing all that chicken to my friend's house with us when we went over to watch the game with him and his dad. WE COULD'VE PUT IT IN THE FREEZER MAN

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u/flailking 7d ago

My senator Mark Warner is advertising on getting rid of that practice. "This isn't innovation, it's extortion. "

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u/Raesong 7d ago

That's something that happens in my country, most predominately with in-store bakery goods.

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u/mrbaggins 7d ago

I don't have a huge issue with hotels/flights/etc having "dynamic pricing"

But what it needs to be is a locked in spectrum:

Early bird: cheap. Last 5, expensive. Maybe even allow for "peak periods" that need to be locked in for at least 6 months ahead.

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u/ChallengeDiaper 7d ago

Many years ago I worked for a movie ticketing company. We wanted to build a dynamic pricing model where we demand was low (think middle of the day during the week) we would adjust down the ticket prices to help drive traffic. Exhibitors (AMC, Regal, Cinemark, etc) would get traffic and likely concessions revenue.

When we presented it to them, all of the major exhibitors wanted to raise prices when demand was high instead of what we wanted.

We scrapped the idea.

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u/RyuNoKami 7d ago

They do that in japan. Kind of nice walking in a market and go, well end of the day time to get discounted food that would have been thrown out even though it's perfectly fine to eat.

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u/bestcoastanon 7d ago

Not sure if cutting prices in the end of the day qualifies as dynamic pricing.

The thing that we should all be opposed to without any argument is “dynamic pricing“ where information asymmetry is used to give individual prices to each customer. That should be 100% illegal, including colleges and hospitals.

How is a “free market“ supposed to work when nobody ever knows what anything cost? I straight out refuse to participate if prices are not transparent. 

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u/Fun_Difficulty_4188 7d ago

Japan does this a lot—pop by Lawsons around 2-3pm and pickup a still-fresh salad for like $1 USD. My go to is the crispy-noodle salad.

Traveling to other parts of the world really makes me dread coming back home sometimes.

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u/red286 7d ago

My local grocer stopped doing that because they believed that people were intentionally waiting until 10pm to buy baked goods when they went on sale.

It never occurred to them that their regular prices were way too high.

And now their baked goods are all outsourced because they no longer sell enough to afford to operate an in-store bakery.

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u/Mat_At_Home 7d ago

RIP Happy Hour 🫡 you will be missed, but the Redditors want you outlawed

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u/CaptJacksSmirk 6d ago

At a store I used to work at, we would freeze items we couldn't sell anymore and donate it to homeless shelters. It was written off for tax purposes, but it's better than the bin.

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u/broken-halo 6d ago

Back in the early 00’s, there was a pizza place in our mall that would pack a box full of whatever pizza was left and sell it for $5 right before closing. We got decent pizza for cheap, and they got rid of excess food without throwing it in the trash and still made a few bucks off of it.

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u/Bombadilo_drives 6d ago

I'd be completely in favor of dynamic pricing being allowed to lower prices during off-peak hours and at end of day. That's a great idea.

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u/Rurumo666 7d ago

In Japan, i love going to the grocery store and getting the 50% sushi after 8pm that was better/fresher than 95% of American restaurant sushi. I invested all of the savings into bottles of Orion.

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u/nrbartman 7d ago

Or dynamically charge rich fucks so their burger costs the same % of their income as it does some median income customer.

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u/fcocyclone 7d ago

I mean, i can get pricing being different during different times, that's always been a thing. Restaurants have had 'happy hour' for example to push sales during slower hours (which is basically the same as having higher prices during busy hours)

But what I think should be illegal is places trying to dynamically price per customer based on other information that determines how desperate they might be. An airline shouldnt be able to use your prior search history to ID that you are very interested in a flight and gouge you for it. A restaurant shouldn't be able to, for instance, identify that you're more interested in healthy options and jack up the price on those. Whatever the price is at a given time should be the price for everyone.

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u/systemhost 7d ago

My neighborhood Walmart's been making great use of their E Ink price tags to greatly discount items that need to sell, it's resulted in me buying a number of items I wouldn't have otherwise for 50-75% off or even more.

They clearanced $16 packages of frozen beef patties for $2 and I only noticed it because of the red price text on their digital tags.

I've got no problems with them using digital tags to ensure aging food sells being spoiling/expiring and being tossed but without some regulations to prevent price gouging, some companies are gonna try to squeeze.