That's what I don't understand Dave
There seems to be a special hatred reserved for McDonalds that many other places that sell similar, or often worse quality food, escape.
People mention eating at cafes instead, but unless it's a vair naice, boasts about using local free range artisan meat etc, the quality at your average greasy spoon is likely to be similar, if not worse or the nice ones will be a lot more expensive.
At least McDonalds burgers are 100% beef, there are plenty of much shittier burgers on the market.
I'm not a particular fan, but I don't mind a McDonalds every once in a while and there's a lot worse out there when you need to eat on the road. That's one thing I like about McDonalds, you know what you're getting, it's quick and fairly cheap.
If you go back to the days before there were McDonalds everywhere, you were stuck with Little Chef, which is very slow and famously extortionately priced shit food.
I use them when travelling for work sometimes. Some independent cafes take fucking ages to produce any food and the quality isn't always much better. Often, I simply don't have time to wait even 10/20 minutes for them to faff around making stuff.
Of course there's also places like M&S Simply food, but when I've been out in the rain all day, I want something hot and comforting, not a fridge cold salad or sandwich that I'll have to wait an hour or two to warm up a bit so it is vaguely edible.