Item — HN Reader

Personally, I find it creepy as hell. I don't want McDonald's to know if I've ever eaten at McDonald's. Call me crazy, but I don't want every person with a profit motive in the world assembling a dossier on me that it uses and sells.

That being said, that's what they signed up for. What did they expect?

I think that getting discounts through loyalty programs should be illegal, because people aren't qualified to evaluate the value of the information that they're selling. If you want to do this, become a private club and simply don't sell at all to people who don't want to be tracked. Instead, it effectively becomes a transfer of cash from people who don't want to be tracked to the ignorant, and a transfer of the data of the ignorant to unscrupulous algorithms and data brokers.

It's not a coincidence that loyalty programs are mostly pushed in convenience store and drugstore chains, grocery stores of last resort for people who lack transportation and live far from a real grocery store.

> That they will charge you more if they know you will come back anyway?

That's certainly a concern. But that's a well known one that at least has some attention. But that McDonald's app knows your habits when it knows where, when, and how much you spend. Combined with 100 other sources of data about you, that might be the tipping point into a new way to exploit you. Hell, you mention that you started going to McDonald's more often and buying particular foods because your daughter is sick. Do you want that information going to insurance companies? How about to quack doctors selling miracle cures? What about PACs?

edit: that information could literally be used to deanonymize your comment.

2 comments

There are a number of small cafes and shops I frequent. The owners / people who work there know me, know my habits, and will know my order before I even ask.

Those people all have a profit motive, and use their knowledge about my interactions with the store to try to increase the profit they make from me.

I feel like that is just running a business. Every business owner pays attention to their customers and their habits. That just seems like good business, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I want them to figure out what I want, and I am happy to pay them a reasonable fee for doing that.

That's fine, but it's hard to transfer the knowledge in the store owner's head easily and at scale.

Hacking it is even harder

> I don't want McDonald's to know if I've ever eaten at McDonald's. Call me crazy,

You are crazy.

Back in the good old pre-Internet commerce days, when you'd go in person to a store, you did not have a reasonable expectation that the owners/employees will forget you once you're gone. If you didn't want the owner/employees to know, you'd get someone else to go in on your behalf.

If you don't want McDonald's to know, get someone else to buy for you.

There is a big difference between automatic data collection on my habits and local staff recognizing me. The later is nice socialy. The former is to my disadvantage.

> There is a big difference between automatic data collection on my habits and local staff recognizing me.

No one is making you install that app.

Long before smartphones were a thing, I refused to join any "loyalty program", for reasons similar to the ones you're voicing.

I went through multiple periods where I paid only cash, reserving CC's only for online purchases. I even paid most of my utility bills in cash (showing up in person at the office). For something as unimportant as fast food, it is totally doable.

If you want convenience (CCs) or benefits (loyalty programs), don't expect to have your cake and eat it.

I am more creeped out by an individual stranger knowing my habits than a faceless corporation.

> The later is nice socialy.

Not if they don't like you.