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Keurig Stock Drops, Says It Was Wrong About DRM Coffee Pods
An anonymous reader writes: Green Mountain (Keurig) stock dropped by 10% this morning after a brutal earnings report. The reason? CNN Money reports that DRM has weakened sales of their Keurig 2.0. CEO Brian Kelley admits, "Quite honestly, we were wrong." Last year Green Mountain decided to make their new coffee machines work with licensed pods only. The company says they now plan to license more outside brands, and bring back “My K-Cup” reusable filters.
in other news, rain is wet.
I have been a loyal user of K-Cups for years now...
I will never buy a DRM coffee machine...
The whole idea is just stupid. I get that they are trying to make money from every cup sold, just like the razor model, but frankly that is a boardroom fantasy...
---
The same issue with music happened... once Amazon started selling DRM free music, I started buying, now having a collection of hundreds of "CDs" all downloaded to all my devices.
I don't pirate any of them, nor do I share them outside my family. Sell me a product I control at a reasonable price and I'll pay you money.
Simple.
If their plan is to get more third parties to go along with their DRM, then they haven't really learned a thing yet.
Coffee is pouring hot water on ground beans. DRM'd Dispensers try to ignore that fact.
Suck it.
...they should have included Apps in their coffee apps so you could app while apping coffee! Or better yet, don't bother with coffee, and just brew more apps!
Apps!
Turns out their DRM consists of a colored rim on the pod. Taping a used v2 lid on to a v1 pod is all it takes.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Personally I'd like to see the environmental nightmare of the Keurig and Tassimo curl up and die.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What exactly does the D stand for in this case... decaf?
It is also working to launch the Keurig KOLD system in the fall, which it hopes will revolutionize how people consume cold beverages at home.
Boldly going where many others have failed before. At least with coffee, there was always a need & market for easy 1 cup brewing. I can't see what need they may be filling with cold beverages, and I don't see people adding another appliance unless it is something quite "revolutionary." Am I missing an obvious need?
For a company that has a limited product line, launching a new one and failing can be very painful.
Make your product better than your imitators! That's all you need to do. Why does everyone buy SD, PNY, Adata, and Silicon Power flash drives over those much cheaper no-name brand Hong Kong wonders on ebay? Because they lie about the speeds, they fail in about a week, and they're made with flimsy materials. Why do people go to Starbucks instead of Kwik Trip (or Seven Eleven for you southerners) for their coffee? Because Starbucks' product is better. That or because they're hippie douchebags. Either way, if you make your product better, your competitors get no business.
Green Mountain (Keurig) stock dropped by 10% this morning
And nothing of value was lost.
They hate us and want us to die. That is why they did this.
While looking for a coffee machine, I liked one of this 2.0 Keurig models.
Then I learned about this "only keurig aproved" cups and actually bought an 1.0 keurig machine instead.
And using this 1.0 model I can't see a reason for one buy a 2.0 model.
I have a Flexbrew (unofficial K-Cup coffee machine) and I have trouble getting it to work with my OneCup (3rd party K-Cup) variety pack. Funny, that.
At least you get a "freedom clip" from the OneCup company.
> "Quite honestly, we were wrong."
YA THINK??? Sorry sorry sorry. That's a little unfair, now that they're trying to do something more reasonable. Too bad it took a shot to the pocketbook, though.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The French Press is to prepare his skin for the straight razor - by compressing shaving foam directly into his pores, hair literally leaps from follicles into the path of the blade.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The company says they now plan to go out of business
My Bialetti Moka is DRM free, makes much tastier coffee than the makers of these machines would ever imagine, costs significantly less, and it environmental friendly.
At last, a serious blow to the pocket book for companies employing stupid DRM crap.
Consumers voted with their wallets and Keurig learns a valuable lesson. Let's hope other industries learn from their mistake and consumer continue to take a stance against this garbage.
Hacking the Keurig is as easy as Hollywood style bomb defusing. You open it and literally cut the green wire. It takes less than 5 minutes and removes all restrictions.
Video explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
They could have gotten away with it if they had been smarter about it.
K-cup is popular.
The 2.0 machine will do things like espresso, and it needs the smarts to do it,
If they had set the machine to treat K-cups without the chips just like the old machine did, no one would have cared.
As more of the featurefull drinks became more popular, more drinks would move over to that.
10 years out, when people are drinking a LOT more of the drinks that use the new features, your making a LOT more money.
Oh, wait, that doesn't drive everyone else out of the market. But it sells a lot more machines and a lot more licences to make drinks using the new features.
Too late, too bad. Our Keurig bit the dust shortly after the DRM pods hit the shelves. We didn't replace it. We won't replace it. One more drop in the lost customers bucket for Keurig, but enough of them add up to a flood.
I wonder how Green Mountain and Coke are feeling with the amount of money they have both invested in this line. Kinda sick to go the route of DRM. I bet there are some very unhappy folks in those Green Mountains as well as down in Atlanta today.
My 20 year old Saeco Vienna superautomatic just grinds, tamps, brews and foams with barely a microcontroller in there and physical buttons. No LCD, no IoT, no touch screen, no flavors, no DRM.
Until they can DRM individual coffee beans, I'm never changing.
Mostly random stuff.
I am not even opposed to DRM per se. DRM as a means of piracy prevention is fair (although it's rarely implemented in a good way). DRM as a means of vendor lock in is completely unacceptable. If Keurig somehow remains successful, it reinforces the precedent that dabbling with vendor lock in is ok, as long as you apologize when it becomes a PR problem. What would be better is if a huge company goes bankrupt over it, and scares other companies from trying the same thing.
I read somewhere (can't remember where) that some company has an Internet connected coffee maker. It's not a single serve device and looks like the "old fashioned" drip maker with a glass pot. This guy is connected to the Internet using your household LAN and if it can't connect it cannot be programmed to work. IIRC, Internet down = no coffee. No Internet at all = no coffee. At least the Keurig DRM can be defeated in several ways as shown on multiple YouTube videos.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I can't see what need they may be filling with cold beverages, and I don't see people adding another appliance unless it is something quite "revolutionary." Am I missing an obvious need?
Basically KOLD is a SodaStream like product. The reason they think it's revolutionary is that they got CocaCola to sign on to it.
AFAIK, unlike SodaStream, KOLD will creates CO2 from a chemical reaction and pressurizes it with a pump (not feeding it from a proprietary pre-filled canister). Not sure how much DRM they were planning for this part, but I'm guessing not much now ;^)
The company says they now plan to license more outside brands, and bring back “My K-Cup” reusable filters.
If they really believed they were wrong about the things they were actually wrong about, then they would Open-Source the DRM technology and make the interoperability specs public domain, and stop trying to charge licensing dollars.
Wow, "vote with your wallet" worked !!!
My first impression of a coffee machine being sold at Walmart (Keurig) that only took specialized coffee pods and no others.
And I read the box, think of all those who didn't, and just grabbed a handy coffee machine as the price wasn't bad.
People do NOT like lock-in by vendors. The situation with Keurig is akin to purchasing a pair of Nike sneakers, only to find that you can ONLY use Nike-branded laces or inserts!
What makes this really a stupid move was that, there was no huge rush to make knock off copies of keurig machines. Very few machine makers went there. But the real dough for Green mountain was in the license fees paid by everyone making K cups. They stopped paying it and more players have entered the pod business.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I see a lot of people looking for the older units, in fact they sell incredibly well. The 2.0 crap? absolutely nobody wants them.
Dear Keurig want to save your company go back to the old 1.0 and stay there, refund everyone that was dumb enough to buy your 2.0 and send them an apology letter.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Perfectly happy with one of these machines. I've used for so long, Know just how much coffee to put into to make a small pot for myself. Add to this an under $20 electric grinder from Amazon and fresh beans from Costco, I can make better tasting coffee than anything out of the pods - yech! And not filling a landfill full of plastic either. The time to grind the beans, replace the filter and brew the coffee is well worth the taste.
When our last Keurig died, I bought this one:
http://www.keurig.com/Brewers/...
I chose this one since it was a heavier duty machine that could accept a plumbed water line - and NO DRM.
All Keurig needs to do is make good quality hardware and source good quality beans for their K-cups - it's not a difficult business model.
"The company says they now plan to license more outside brands, and bring back “My K-Cup” reusable filters."
They learned nothing. They will continue to DRM the coffee maker just license More pods.I hope the pod makers flip them off as they should.They don't need Keurig,Keurig needs them.
Jack of all trades,master of none
about a product that shouldn't exist.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Buy an espresso machine, instead of this pod garbage. coffee is much nicer and you can make whatever you want.
-- Fuck Beta
Stuff your DRM. Won't buy it.
Literally, EVERYONE said "this is a really stupid idea, why would ANYONE buy one of those?" ...and now they say "Aw shucks, we didn't realize?"
I hope their stock drops further just because of their arrogance or their stupidity, you pick one.
-Styopa
buy a french press or a proper espresso machine and learn to make a decent cup of coffee without all the stupid prepackaged waste.
I've used one of the old Keurigs for a while, but honestly, it's not that great to begin with: you pay a lot for coffee that is at best mediocre. If you're going to go the machine route, consider some of the other machines: Tassimo, Nespresso, Verismo, or Senseo. I think they all beat Keurig along some dimensions (price, quality, convenience). Or use the original, ESE Pods in a real espresso machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Coffee and espresso pods have been around since the 1950's. Keurig has brought nothing to the table other than marketing as far as I can tell. It's not clear their patent should even have been granted in the first place.
People have found different brands they like better, they have no reason to come back. Licensing more bands of pods to work with your DRM machines is not the same as getting rid of it. People know that and will continue to avoid them.
They had a good thing 2-3 years ago, every office and kitchen had a Keurig. they got greedy and lost it all. Like the story of the farmer killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, to try and get all the gold at once.
The right answer is to publish a document on your website, liberally licensed, that outlines exactly what you have to do to make a KC2 capsule, right down to the spectral properties and the recommended formulae of the ink. Then everyone will be able to produce completely compatible cartridges that make use of all the brewer's features.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
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Surely I'm not the only one who googled a way around the DRM?
If there are better products out there, that do the same thing for less money than what Apple asks for...how are they "locked in"??? And no, needing an iPhone to run iPhone apps is not "lock in" any more than needing to stay on Android to keep using your apps purchased on the Play Store is "lock in".
Because of ethic reasons I will remember to never buy your brand.
Your reason of diminishing sales are just deserving of bankrupcy and fines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGiGbX9lIo
you have been warned.
They gave away and merely ASKED for donations. No limit, no minimum. They also sold special feature packs of physical media with collectible or memorabilia or signed stuff.
They made much more money from that album than ANY album (or any three, IIRC) they had made while with a label.
Something else to remember. When it comes to "You freetards with your FOSS GPL, you only want free stuff!", when it comes to app purchases on a request donation model, FOSS/OpenSource paid the most per purchase. Apple second. Microsoft third.
Maybe having paid a shitload for a half-assed OS that whines and bitches, people want to pay less, since they've "already paid something". Maybe those other places attract people who are more likeable and generous.
I know it's been said before (and most likely even within this thread), but it's worth repeating: coffee pods are stupidly expensive. Keurig's business is model is to package up beans that cost between $6 and $12 per pound at retail and jack the price up to, at the high end, $40 per pound.
If you're in a household that drinks 3 or 4 cups a day, you can buy an all-in-one coffeemaker like a Jura (whole beans on one side, water on the other, coffee out the middle) and come out ahead in 2 or three 3 years. You also get a similar level of convenience, wider selection of coffee (especially at the higher end of the coffee spectrum), less trash (the grounds get dumped into a container, ready for composting) and, generally, a better cuppa (freshly ground beans make a difference).
Yes, refilling your own pods is cheaper -- as is using a French press. But, when it comes to convenience and TCO, you've got better options.
The keurig 2.0 pissed so many people off, that standard store clerks know about the keurig 2.0 and warn people away from it. I warned my stepmother about it before she went out to buy one as a present for someone, and then she got reminded again at the store. I was happy to know that they're actively pushing people away from an inferior product.
Also of note, I found something funny in one of their third party k-cup purchases at my parent's house. It came with something called a 'freedom clip.' It goes over the sensor and does something to the 2.0 machine, preventing all the tomfoolery.
Digital Revenue Minimization. This is merely yet another data point. DRM is means of communicating the word "no" to potential customers.
Kinda funny how nutty people get over their hot dirty water.
Rogers Family Coffee will give you a DRM defeating "Freedom Clip" that let's any K-cup work in the 2.0 Keurigs. I tried the 2.0 lid taped to an old K-cup trick for about a week. The Freedom clip is much easier. https://www.gourmet-coffee.com...
I bought a Jura Capresso S9 and I'll never go back to dehydrated instant coffee pods again.
There's still a few people posting "M$" and rambling about Sony's rootkited CDs (or whatever it was, I've forgotten the details already). Never underestimate the power or a slashdot grudge.
The keurig made weak, shit coffee anyway.
The Senseo OTOH made really good coffee, but it lost the single serve coffee wars.
I will never buy a DRM coffee machine...
Unless you're a prostitute, don't fuck your customer.
Or Apple -- you lock in your customers all you want if you're Apple.
sounds like marriage. and at that point it's just 'domestic dispute'
A 32oz of beans lasts us (mostly me) about a week! Of course we use a coffee maker that makes good coffee, "Bunn Phase Brew 8 Cup Coffee Brewer" certified by SCAA
straight from the makers of aerobie (isn't that crazy?) you guys need to move to the aeropress. Just add hot water, wait 30 seconds, and you get a surprisingly incredible cup of espresso.
Until I read this, I was going to post the same thing. And I wouldn't have intended it as a joke.
I use a French press and will never, ever, ever change.
Ever.
Maybe I don't use a straight razor, but I do use double-edge. No amount of marketing will ever convince me that a five bladed cheese grater will give me a closer shave that a single blade.
Ever.
You dig?
Ever.
Just cut the foil top off a drm cup and tape it to the top of the Keurig. Problem solved.
French press is better!
Keurig coffee tastes awful, it's the most wasteful way to brew *anything*, and the devices inevitably turn into large petri dishes full of algae and bacteria.
bzzzt
I'm sorry. Unauthorized data file for ..."Tea. Earl Grey"
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I had a decent burr grinder. It died, I fixed it, it died, I fixed it, and then I roached the motor.
I replaced it with a whizzy-blade grinder, which seems to do almost as well with good technique.
Regarding espresso, I did have one of those machines. If it were the hard plumbed push a button and pull a shot type that the barista at my local coffee sanctuary uses, I'd still have one.
Instead, I donated it to the thrift store and someone else paid five bucks for it. Good for them for owning such a hated kit.
So I've got my thermal carafe drip brew machine, a big percolator, and a French press. I want an alcohol or butane fuelled vacuum brewer, but.....
And I'm totally not interested in spending my own dime on anything Kuereg.
Kid-proof tablet..
I had a decent burr grinder. It died, I fixed it, it died, I fixed it, and then I roached the motor.
I'm on my second $50 Cuisinart, the first one was replaced under warranty and this one has long outlived that one.
Regarding espresso, I did have one of those machines. If it were the hard plumbed push a button and pull a shot type that the barista at my local coffee sanctuary uses, I'd still have one.
Instead, I donated it to the thrift store and someone else paid five bucks for it. Good for them for owning such a hated kit.
Well, someone like me but where you live thanks you. And if they've got a lady, they thank you too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"