The food and ingredients are the same, but the quality can vary a lot depending on how bad of job they do cooking it. When you've been disappointed enough by buying dry and borderline-burned breakfast, you stop trusting that all locations are equal.
Probably very few if any. Admittedly the outlier, I read Chipotle reviews because I've had too many of them give a time for pickup then proceed to dilly-dally for 20-30 mins past the time they gave me. Not cool. I'm happy to wait, but don't tell me it's going to be done.
If I'm stopping by somewhere out of town, yes. Food quality varies by location, and I'm not going to waste my money on an undercooked meal at McDonald's when the competitor down the street is better.
I'm not directing this at you personally when I say this, but what the fuck is so hard for most people to believe about the idea? Is it a foreign concept to treat franchized fast food places run by different franchisees as not equal? I'm not the only one who uses reviews to decide if I should skip a crappy location.
what the fuck is so hard for most people to believe about the idea?
For me, it is a fact that such establishments are first and foremost matter of convenience, you go there because it is close to where you are at that moment and you expect to get fast food of dubious nutritional quality that is about the same (non)quality as in every other similar place. For fine dining worth prior research you go elsewhere than the McDonald's.