I’m not opposed to DRM per se. The problem with DRM is not that companies think it’s a good idea, but that there is legislation making working around it illegal. It should be a simple free market issue. If, as a company, you think you can outsmart your customers and not piss them off so much that they don’t pay you, then good luck. As a customer, if you think you can outsmart a company that uses DRM, and make it do something they don’t want you to do with it, then good luck too. If you don’t want to have to do that, then don’t buy from them.
The frustration is entirely about the law getting involved in it.
I have the opposite reaction. They’re hemorrhaging money and market share because of a blatant greed-based move that screwed their customers, and when it predictably failed, they say they simply miscalculated? Miscalculated what-- How much they could get away with? K-cups are already terrible for the environment, so it was never likely I’d have ever put one on my counter, but that DRM move shows the company to be not only environmentally irresponsible—not only greedy beyond belief—but staggeringly stupid to think there wouldn’t be a backlash. The only apology I would have given any credence to would be one that actually blamed their greed and stupidity, instead of being wrong about their customer’s “passion”. What PR speak bullshit that is. Passion not to be reamed, maybe.
We have pod coffee thing in our office, pure convenience, but it’s always with the caveat that ‘it’ll be sweet and tasty, but don’t expect good coffee’. It does literally make a caramel macchiato in like 20 seconds.
It’s the waste that makes me cringe more than anything though - not that paper-cup takeout is any better of course - but compared to using a mokapot or whatever it doesn’t take many drinks to end up with a whole bin full of the things.
Haven’t lived in the U.S. for years so I really don’t know…do you have the paper single serve drip packs? No plastic, although they certainly produce more waste than a regular coffeemaker. Here in Japan I use these http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/aw/d/B00UTCV9QS/ref=pd_aw_sim_fb_7?refRID=046G5PVPW03FGNRG46JP
in the office (a whole pot would go to waste as I’m in and out all day). Not gourmet but vastly better than instant. (I actually use another brand, but this one has a good pic of the filter pack)
The law is involved in DRM precisely because it doesn’t work. If it was possible to make a DRM system that was actually effective, then laws would not be necessary to guard it.
Absolutely, the waste is intense. The cost is pretty intense, too; after two weeks of having them in our old office, they got rid of the thing – 50+ employees went through hundreds of dollars in pods pretty quickly. They went back to having awful office coffee and we all went back to buying our coffee at Starbucks.
Exactly, this is the “baby come back” of corporate-speak. They haven’t learned, but they can totally change if you give them a chance. They won’t show you how much they’ve changed until you take them back and wait. Their rhetoric is (slightly) different!
I was just trying to think what on earth a “cold-brew coffee-brewing machine” would consist of. How do you mechanize the process of putting some coffee grounds and cold water together and ignoring them for 12-24 hours?
I’ll give you one besides convenience, money. I drink coffee infrequently, like once a week at most. So even buying whole beans and grinding myself I’d never go through even a half pound before they went stale. I suppose maybe with a vacuum sealer, but then that’s just more money to throw at it. With a K-Cup setup I can get a decent cup of coffee every time without worrying about how fresh it is or if it’s picked up some off flavors.
I think a slightly different reason their sales have dropped is the relentless expansion. My wife and I have a Vue system…you know that one that was touted as better than the K-Cup system - and then promptly forgot about a year later when the Vue 2.0 came out.
Yeah that’s my issue with Keurig. Sure they still support the Vue system, but no one else does. So now consumers have yet another system to think about and at some point it becomes meaningless and people stop buying in. Keurig kind of screwed themselves in the foot by not making them all backwards compatible.
Thank you. I needed a shot of strong bitter reality in my coffee this morning. I hate it when being half awake makes me more sympathetic to a corporation’s faux apology than it deserves.
Yeah the cost is what boggles me. Okay it is cheaper than the cafeteria but if I go the least expensive path and get a 200 count store brand box from Costco it still works out to 40 cents a pod. The office coffee charges 1 dollar a pod and 25 cents for the drip which is just as good as the pod and we can toss the grounds and filter into a bin that will get composted the pods will pile up in the landfill. The instant I bring in probably costs me 11 cents a cup give or take.
Depending on how it died, it may be worth to consider a repair. If the spares aren’t available, make them or get them made by someone.
Compare the cost/difficulty of this approach with the cost/difficulty of finding an adequate replacement. Often a day in the workshop is the cheaper variant compared to three days of browsing shops.
I can’t really say I’m doing things “better” myself, as I use a Nespresso system at home and pay about 50-60 cents per pod for my espresso. But at least they do a very good job of making their pods recyclable so the waste issue isn’t as much of a problem.
