alt Hacker NewsThat's not a moat, those are advantages.
Anybody can open a franchise restaurant business, of course not initially having the margins of a well established international behemoth.
A moat is what ASML has, having achieved something others spent many years failing.
A moat is what NVIDIA has with CUDA, against which so much software is written.
An economy of scale, which McDonalds surely has as GP suggested in various areas, supports durable profits. Seems like a moat to me.
Land is the classic cornered resource. Again a source of durable profits. You can’t open up a franchise restaurant on land owned by McDonalds; the profits from traffic earned in that location are not accessible to you.
CUDA is not a moat because it happens to be unique. CUDA provides a moat for NVIDIA due to the high switching costs and network effects it provides.
McDonalds to my knowledge does not have any network effects dynamics going on however they have entrenched switching cost mechanisms in the form of loyalty rewards programs.
If you think McDonalds has no moat you’re dreaming.