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Silicon Valley's $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: One of the most lavishly funded gadget startups in Silicon Valley last year was Juicero Inc. It makes a juice machine. The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage. Doug Evans, the company's founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force -- "enough to lift two Teslas," he said. Google's venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it.
Here I thought you would stick fruit containers in it, and it would pulp them up. But using bags of... juice? Did no one along the line wonder what the device was actually for?
It is so simple (and I'm guessing more economical) to go to the grocery store and get some veggies and/or fruits and throw down a regular juicer.
Hell, I have a Breville multi-speed one for about $200....why would someone buy a $400 machine that requires you to buy prepackaged produce to be squeezed out of it...?
How did so many people think this was a bright idea?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Back in the old days. a pair of HP engineers put in purchase order for a Saturn V rocket launcher and it got all the way to VP before it got cancel. These days you can combine a toaster with an iPhone, call it iToast, and no one will think twice about throwing money at it.
It's not a juicer if it doesn't even make juice. All it's doing is squeezing already made juice out of a fancy bag. So if anything, it is a $400 (after the price drop, looks like it was originally $700) juice dispenser, not juicer. Looking at the photos in the article, it looks like what we would have if CapriSun was made by Apple.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This article and the recent ones about Tilt makes me thing that these "investors" decide where to invest almost entirely based on how dynamic and likable the pitchman is, nothing else.
As for this juicer, you can buy frozen fruit at Costco and juice or make smoothies for pennies on the dollar of this product. But too any good juice or smoothie is just too sweet to be healthy in the first place. Another "health food" gimmick as are almost all of these diets, supplements, programs and devices.
I don't know, but it works for me.
Too many people fall for the 'jucing' meme every year, which is why shitty companies keep producing them. You want to eat healthier and be healthier? Eat whole fruits and vegetables instead. Goal attained, and you saved hundreds of dollars in the process. You're welcome.
My grandmother kept her juice cups next to her moonshine. Respectable people don't swig from the bottle.
Uh, your juicer obviously isn't internet connected, duh. How else can you use their IoT app to start the juicer, automatically request shipments for more overpriced veggie/fruit bags (with DRM in the future I'm sure, (
Kuerig anyone?), and make needless automated social media posts about your healthy juicing/nutrition with embedded advertisements. Oh boy.
I'm sure they also have plans to link with a select for exercise apps/smartwatch apps to import your juice bag data to track your diet and make you feel like you're a super hero.
what exactly is the purpose of this "juicer"?
Provide a gravy train of free investor money for a select few at the head of the operation. Duh.
I confess, I RTFA.
Bags are $5-$8 and produce about 8 fluid ounces of juice. There are a lot of chumps in the world, but this is just pushing stupid a few steps too far. Even the special kind of 'stupid' that comes from lack of meat in the diet won't fall for this crap (outside LA anyhow).
The company obviously doesn't understand it's own business model. They are now only selling the bags to known machine purchasers. Apparently to stop 'hand squeezers'. Would HP refuse you printer ink because you hadn't registered your inkjet?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Dumbass investors saw this as a Kuerig for vegans. A new device that accomplishes the goal of selling the most amount of cheap material crap to people at a exorbitantly marked up price, with a potentially successful marketing message of a "better way".
Somehow people bought heavily into the concept of Kuerig, even though you have had small (even single) serving coffee machines for decades and decades. But no, now you can buy a wasteful and expensive single serving cup that you drop in and there's a water tank and a pump that will eventually fail too, all for the low price of 5-10 small, simple, almost never failing, thermosiphon drip coffee maker. Oh and you get to pay tons more for your easy to use coffee cups now too! Yay!
A lot of people seem to think their lives get better as they acquire more technology. Doesn't matter what it is. If it has a button and a screen and it does something that didn't have a screen before, its better. Now it even has the internet so it can do... even more things or something.
TL;DR Why? Because stupidly blind and wasteful consumerism.
It puts a smile on my face to see such an expensive shit device like this fail so hard.
Consider this quote from TFA: "Tech blogs have dubbed it a 'Keurig for juice.'" Then consider how Keurig machines and the coffee pods they use have sold over the past few years. Nobody ever went broke overestimating people's laziness.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Not only internet connected, but the founder managed to conjure up the ghost of Steve Jobs and inject "Tesla" into his public statements, even though neither has anything to do with a juice squeezer.
Strange things happen when you take naive, out-of-touch leftists and then give them huge amounts of money that they didn't really earn in any meaningful way.
And then they become Republicans.
When visitors come to Silicon Valley, one of the first things they notice is that they're saying "What the fuck?!" to themselves constantly.
Silicon Valley != San Francisco
Per the article: $5-$8 per bag. 8 oz juice/bag.
Your office manager has to be a special kind of stupid. All costs are opportunity costs, you could have an 'endless' bowl of fresh fruit and a weekly keg of good beer in the office for less. I'd be bitching about wasting bene money on overpriced crap.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
At the same time, while, on the whole, it may be cheaper to do it yourself, if you don't use your juicer a lot then it may be more expensive in the long run when you have to buy many different ingredients that don't last that long.
No, the point is that it's $400 cheaper, with exactly the same results, if you don't buy the juicer at all. Also: No, you could use a standard juicer and throw away half your ingredients (probably much more than that), and it would still be cheaper than $5/eight ounces.
There's a convenience cost, and for the people willing to pay it that second point is less important, but the first point is the mark of a scam - this product is unnecessary.