SINGAPORE: A viral image circulating on Reddit and other social platforms has drawn attention to a strange—and unintentionally hilarious—checkout experience at a McDonald’s self-service kiosk in Singapore. The image shows a promotional screen offering a $7.90 lunch bag add-on, with two options: “Lunch Bag” and “No, thanks!” But here’s the kicker: the “No, thanks” button is greyed out, with the message “Sold Out” displayed in it.
At first glance, it seems like a simple UI bug. But to anyone familiar with point-of-sale (POS) systems or e-commerce software, this isn’t just a humorous design oversight but a glimpse into how digital infrastructure can affect consumer interaction in surprising ways.
It also gave netizens plenty of meme fuel. “You know the economy is bad when they run out of ‘No, Thanks!’ to sell lol,” one commented. Another joked: “What the? It’s sold out to NOT buy something now!”
How does a “No” get sold out?
POS systems often treat all selections—whether they add a product or not—as part of a structured item inventory logic. Typically, promotional add-ons (like a lunch bag or a toy) are entered into the system as products with stock-keeping units (SKUs). In this case, the “Yes” option clearly corresponds to an actual item with inventory.
However, what likely happened is that the “No, thanks” button was also mistakenly configured as an item with limited stock—probably as a dummy placeholder with an assigned quantity, say 9999 units. This would make sense from a backend perspective, where each option (even refusal) is logged as a selection to complete the flow.
But once enough users choose “No,” that quantity could tick down like a regular product. Eventually, the system thinks the “No” inventory has been depleted—and thus greys it out like any out-of-stock item. As one Redditor speculated: “Did they put 9999 qty for that item or something?”
This isn’t the first time digital menus have come under scrutiny. Whether it’s unskippable upsell pop-ups, default tip suggestions, or greyed-out cancellation options, customers are becoming increasingly savvy to how interface design can be used to steer behaviour.
