That Bad Tipping thread was some seriously delicious brains, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “fair”, let alone the word “moral” applied to eating out before.
Oh, I’m sorry… I meant FAIR and MORAL.
Awesome.
It’s a little known fact, but McDonalds gave free refils for as long as I can remember, even if the fountains are behind the counter.
Still do. I usually get them to refill my drink on the way out when I bring the kiddos.
I keep my furniture within my property if I want to restrict access to it. I put my furniture outside my property if I want someone to take it. It’s completely senseless to allow free access to the fountain and yet not allow free refills, and you’re just going to wind up with a lot of shrinkage that way.
I think that is to discourage the homeless from hanging out in the restaurant with the same cup day after day.
That thread was a thing of beauty.
On the actual topic of this thread, I used to seriously abuse the free refill option but I’ve cut way down on my diet coke intake now.
That’s how I see it. Fill me up!
This thread is something of a zombie, but I don’t see any problems with it. We’ll leave it open for now.
I actually am always surprised that this is so little known. Every fast food restaurant I’ve ever encountered has had this–long before they started putting the fountain drinks out front.
I have maybe encountered a handful of restaurants period that don’t offer free refills on fountains soda. The one exception I can think of right now is such an oddity that people talk about it like its’ the strangest thing ever.
And, yes, if you don’t want something to be taken for free, you have an ethical obligation to make it clear, or at least to protect. Taking something that someone else does not want you to take is not itself unethical if they offer it. You have no one to blame but yourself if you do not counter possible communications that taking is okay.
I gave several PERFECTLY valid reasons why the soda machines would be out front that has NOTHING to do with free refills. Saves the business behind the counter space, saves them some work (and the possibility of messing up your drink), and it allows you to make the drink just the way you like it. None of those are a function of whether they are charging for every fill or not.
You can argue the norm is now free refills for everyone. You can argue its worth it (or just easier) to the company to give away something thats nearly free. You can argue if there isnt a sign saying otherwise free refill away if you want. You can argue if they don’t want people refilling, there should be an obvious sign.
But don’t say it makes no sense whatsoever to have em out front even without free refills, cause it does.
And yet the biggest reason for putting it behind the counter – restricting access – trumps all of those soundly. A restaurant that is going to charge 25 cents for 5 cents worth of soda isn’t going to care terribly much about any of the reasons you give. After all, many of them offer to make your burger exactly the way you like it, but they sure as hell aren’t putting the burger ingredients out in the commons.
Putting a soda machine out in the commons and then expecting people to pay means putting an employee in charge of watching the fountain and tracking who uses it, which wastes their time. If they don’t, then they’re offering free refills whether they like it or not, because there’s always been plenty of people who just won’t care and will happily abuse whatever’s available to them.
But it helps to worsen the obesity epidemic, if there’s a limited choice of taps (i.e. no diet anything).
You listen! You really listen! Thank you. Oh frabjous day, I’m so happy 
I’ve heard of some people who keep a McDonald’s coffee cup in their car at all times, so whenever they stop into one they can get a free refill. I’d suggest that raises some ethics issues.
On the contrary, it inspires loyalty for almost nothing. I mean, it may be unethical in the sense that it’s not McD’s policy, but setting that aside it’s good for business. If you hang onto a McD’s cup with the expectation of a freefill, you’ll be more inclined to go back to them for your next fast food meal than Burger King.
Good. Fucking. Gods.
Now that there is a person who’s definitely a few sandwiches shy of a full picnic.