Which is ironic

Is it tho?

It's capitalism, once you dominate the market share you raise prices.

Fast food pushed out small local shops, but there's a few major chains everywhere. So now they're more expensive than sit down restaurants, because the "speed" which isn't all that fast anymore is treated as a premium and not a side effect from being cheap/easy food.

Like, everything is based off stock price, and stock price is about profit margin going up. And that's exponential, it's not mathematically possible to keep going up.

The only way is to keep pushing up prices and making products shittier.

It's not irony, it's working as intended.

Capitalism only works when you break up monopolies regularly so there can be competition.

Hell, this is way more evident in a franchise model. The actual owners can't really do anything, they're locked in long leases and are forced to buy from only one supplier.

If McDonald's says party prices go up 50%, the franchise owner has literally zero options. They have to pay it.

The whole system is fucked and pretty much a pyramid scheme.

That's the other crazy thing. Look at all the millionaire actors and music stars. They have much bigger incomes than past artists, but is Tom Hanks or Taylor Swift really that much richer than John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe? A doctor today is giving his family the life a moderately successful plumber had 50 years ago.

Yup, the Taco Bell commercial jingle in the early 90s was based on their menu prices:

59, 79, 99

Everything (or just about everything) on the menu fit into those price ranges. Fast food was where you went to get something cheap and filling. Prices go up, I get that. But even back then, that was considered super cheap. Still, inflation isn't the problem. The problem is that wages have not been keeping pace with inflation for decades.

Hmm sounds like luxury to me.

I've heard of them before, but my assumption was that whatever factor about fast food had killed them off, probably would still be in play to prevent them returning unless optimized even further somehow