OP, I'm also not a fan of the "chain" type scenarios you're talking about. I know some people don't give it a thought and are trying to be kind, but it does seem to often have the opposite effect. If you're paying for the person behind you out of obligation and then you have to consider if their meal was more or less than yours and potentially feel slighted, that really defeats the purpose of it being an act of kindness.
To me it's along the same lines as obligatory reciprocal gift giving. I think many (most?) people feel like if someone gives them a gift then they are owed a gift in return and this extends to the pay it forward situation you mention. "Several people in front of me paid for other's food, so now I
have to pay for the food of the person behind me or I look like a jerk." That's not me doing something nice, that's me feeling pressured to do something out of obligation.
Recipients of kindness don't have to be people in need. That is charity. It is a different concept.
Yeah, I think we are talking about two different things in this thread. Several people have mentioned "helping people" which is not the point of a "random acts of kindness" gesture. It really doesn't matter how well off the other person is; the gesture's purpose is to brighten their day not help them out financially.
I can think of numerous times at Disney where we did something nice (gave out extra FPs, gave a pin to a kid who was admiring it, bought candy for someone with a snack credit, etc). Obviously people who can afford to go to Disney did not "need" the items. To me, this is a completely different type of thing than buying a meal for a homeless person or paying for someone's groceries who is putting items back because they can't afford them.
This may just be my opinion but that's probably just even more against the practice when it's done as a drive-thru thing. I know I know but either you're doing it to because you want to give a gesture or not. There's a lot of attention being paid to what the amount is the quantity of the order in which it's conditional; you'll
only give this amount not
the whole amount. If this is causing someone to
really think that way maybe it's better to give back a different way. Of course the fact that you're offering is great too and I don't wish to diminish that but pay it forward is about so much more than a person's order in a drive-thru and there's a lot more ways to give back than worrying over how much someone's order is or that they had this many from their order
I understand what you're saying about not focusing on the amount, but I have seen people many times pay for a partial order and I don't think it was because they were being cheap or calculating. This usually happens when someone is paying with cash-- for example, they may hand the cashier a $20 bill and say, "just apply the change to the next person" Or perhaps the person in front of them paid for their order and they want to pay for the person behind them, but only have $10 not the full amount of the following car's bill.