The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM" 769
FuzzNugget writes "Apparently seeking to lock competitors out of the burgeoning single-serve coffee market, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, maker of the popular Keurig coffee machines, will make their new machines work with licensed pods only. GMCR's CEO confirmed this in a statement: 'The much-anticipated ‘Keurig 2.0’ single-cup brewing system with ‘interactive readability’ (that doesn’t work with unlicensed/copycat pods) will offer such “game-changing functionality” that consumers - and unlicensed players - will want to switch.'"
And just like Sony ... (Score:5, Informative)
they deserve to fail miserably and go down in flames.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press ... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
Just use an immersion heater [amazon.com] in your coffee mug to heat the water before you dump it in the press.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press ... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
Are you on crack? We boil water in an electric kettle in 2.5 minutes, then pour into a press, and blammo, coffee. Keurig provides stupid, bland, watery goop that doesn't leave you with a bunch of grinds to clean up. However, it is neither greener, nor more efficient or even easier really.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
A Brazil press is microwave safe. Scratch the bottom to keep from super heating.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Starbuck's Via is also a clean single-cup solution. It is cheaper, smaller and more dependable than the Keurig machine. It is also a format that would be very hard to add DRM, etc.
Since Keurig wants to punish its customers, I will forgo their stupidity.
Keurig, like Beta, sucks.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Coffee makers make a little or as much coffee as you want. If you want one cup, only put one cup or water and a proportionate amount of grounds. And you have the added benefit that while brewing many cups of Keurig is a linearly hard problem (meaning that it takes 20 times longer to brew 20 cups), conventional brewing is not.
When you actually in a situation where you are brewing a lot of coffee, the conventional method becomes more efficient per cup.
Any computer programmer should be able to tell you which is the overall more efficient solution for the general situation.
Re:Horrible coffee (Score:2, Informative)
The regular Keurig machine makes filtered coffee; it is not an espresso machine.
Yes, and it tastes horrible, compared to decently made filtered coffee. I'm quite familiar with it, unfortunately.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Um... Keurig sucks. I've had their coffee, it's expensive and tastes bland.
I've been using this for nearly a decade: http://www.amazon.com/Melitta-... [amazon.com]
Taste great, 1 cup and I can use actual REAL coffee in it!
also, in a pinch you can make one of these out of a paper cup by poking holes in it and sticking in a regular old filter. The key is not to make the holes too big so the cofee steeps in the hot water for long enough.
Re:Horrible coffee (Score:5, Informative)
Cleaning the grounds out of a french press is awful. The aeropress completely fixes that problem.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
http://aerobie.com/products/ae... [aerobie.com]
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
I have an inductive hot water pot, it is about as safe as anything possible. You tell me it is a fire hazard, and I'll find a dozen more likely sources in your office.
The only thing that gets hot is the water pot portion. And it is separated from the induction base, which remains coolish. An Incandescent (you remember those?) bulb is hotter.
Re:Not my cup of tea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
How much "game-changing functionality" can you really work into a fucking coffee machine?
To me, it sounds like they're planning on emulating Tassimo and their bar-coded brewing system, so the user can use 'milk' pods, tea pods, etc. and the system will brew them differently depending on the scanned and recognized contents (temperature for sure, pressure maybe? size? IDK)
What they seem to be 'forgetting' is that it was the flexibility and simplicity of the K-Cup system that actually gained them the dominant market share in the first place. Sure you can brew cappucinos and lattes with the Tassimo...but you can use your own favorite coffee brand with the Keurig My K-Cup reusable filter, freshly ground if that's your thing, or spooned out of a Maxwell House container to save money / env. wastage on each cup. Heck, I use my My K-Cup to hold loose tea leaves when I feel like a specialty cuppa...and they're good for two to three cups, too.
Nope, if they disable their whole BYO ability, I predict that they will wind up in a small corner of a niche market. If they relent and provide a My K-Cup equivalent for the 2.0...well, it's just barely possible that they could survive this bone-headed move, although people will grumble about not having cheap generics available. Either way, watch for stock prices to plunge.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
I have not tried the Keurig but other coffee pod machines I have used and owned produce single cups of pretty damn good coffee, complete with frothed milk, and there is basically zero mess. No mucking about with filters and pots and grinding up beans and aerating milk and all that crap.
Okay, if I could be bothered I could brew a slightly better cup the traditional way. But with pods I have variety and almost zero effort, ideal for work. It's a very small compromise for a very big gain.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
One word: Aeropress.
Re:That $30 Mr. Coffee Espresso maker... (Score:4, Informative)
By my math, you're saving just $0.01/serving over a Keurig, and you're losing a lot more time on rote actions such as measuring out beans, grinding them, packing the grounds, and cleaning the equipment. Keurig users seem like they probably got the better end of that deal.
As for my math...
Assumption: For the sake of argument, the $120 Keurig only lasts for two years, just like your $30 Mr. Coffee
Assumption: Coffee drinker drinks two cups a day for two years = 1460 servings
Assumption: An average Keurig pod costs $0.50
Cost of pods = 1460 servings * $0.50 = $730
Cost of machine = $120
Amortized cost = ($730 + $120) / 1460 servings = $0.58/serving
I tried to base most of my assumptions on numbers that favored you. For instance, though most people buying pods are likely to buy them in bulk for well under $0.50, I went with $0.50 since it was roughly in the middle of the range of prices I was seeing on Amazon. I also assumed that the Keurig would fail after just two years, despite all anecdotal evidence I'm aware of indicating that it would likely last much longer. Similarly, I went with a low rate of consumption so that the higher cost of the Keurig machine would play a greater role in the amortized cost, thus favoring your argument.
And yet, despite all of that, the difference was surprisingly just $0.01. I didn't game the numbers to try and get that result. It really did just happen to work out that way.
TL;DR: I'm not recommending Keurig machines, but I also wouldn't suggest that your use case represents a cost savings of any significance. In fact, I'd argue that most people would rather incur the $0.01 cost in order to be free of the hassle of dealing with everything your machine involves.