"T" wrote:

They are "assimilated".

This only proves once again that most people care more for cheap stuff at
cheap prices that they do for quality service and products.

If this weren't true, McDonalds, Burger King and Harbor Freight would all be
out of business.

"You too, will become one with The Borg"

The opposite of "cheap" is not necessarily "quality" nor is good
quality obligatorily expensive.

McDonalds for example produce excellent french fries, better than
anything you can make, and better than anything the top-rated
restaurants can produce. A few years ago the New Yorker, a journal not
renowned for its support of fast food, ran a long in-depth article on
the subject detailing the steps taken to ensure that McDs fries are
without parallel. At the time the top-rated restaurant in the US was
"Daniel" in NYC owned by Daniel Bouloud and in an interview even he
admitted to indulging in the occasional "large fries" pointing out
that while most of McDs food was suitable only for the dumpster, their
fries were sublime and well beyond what he could produce.

If you're interested, the reason is that the making of good fries is a
function highly contingent upon the industrialized processes at which
McDs excels. The potatoes have to be of a particular variety and
harvested at a time of low water content. Since they're usually sold
by weight the farmer has the opposite interest; McDs solves the
problem by having exclusive contracts, supervising the growing and
harvesting, and ensuring they're harvested at the appropriate time.
Even then they go through a long drying process in vast hangers until
they reach the optimum level. The cutting and then pre-cooking and
freezing for delivery are minutely controlled and finally at the
franchisee end those deep fryers maintain exactly the right
temperature for the second cooking and notify the grunts by buzzer of
the exact moment to remove the ideal french fry.

And no, contrary to rumor, they don't add sugar to the fries.