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Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze

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K

Kin5290

Member
Stinkles said:
The most astonishing thing to me is that this is a product people bought rather than a failed kickstarter.


It seems like the demographic is like, people who grew up with servants but can no longer afford to keep the help?

Keurig may be just as lazy but you can't argue that it's a convenient way to brew a single cup of coffee. Although their DRM attempt was almost as hilarious.
Click to expand...
Keurig at least served a purpose that wasn't being met before Keurig. Juicero is caught between the people who own a juicer and squeeze their own fruit juice, who wouldn't pay $700 and a monthly subscription for the privilege of doing what they were already doing, and people who buy fresh squeezed juice from stores (who wouldn't pay $700 for the privilege of paying what they were already paying for juice).

And Keurig is lucky that they didn't launch with DRM, or they never would have built a market from scratch.
 
S

Skunkers

Member
barber said:
Being proud that your machine has 400 custom parts hurted me as an engineer...
Click to expand...

I'm with this guy on the first page.

Like, all it does is squeeze right? It just needs a vice and an electric motor; that's like... 4 parts. I'm not even an engineer.
 
T

Timbuktu

Member
Kin5290 said:
Keurig at least served a purpose that wasn't being met before Keurig. Juicero is caught between the people who own a juicer and squeeze their own fruit juice, who wouldn't pay $700 and a monthly subscription for the privilege of doing what they were already doing, and people who buy fresh squeezed juice from stores (who wouldn't pay $700 for the privilege of paying what they were already paying for juice).

And Keurig is lucky that they didn't launch with DRM, or they never would have built a market from scratch.
Click to expand...

Haven't heard of Keurig, guess they are same as Nespresso.
 
D

Diprosalic

Banned
i think i kinda get the bag concept but the drm and the way overpriced machine is idiotic.
make it like nespresso where the machine is basically free and they get you on the subscription. remove the drm and maybe have a popup thing like "this bag has expired x days ago" notification and let me still get the juice.

then it wouldn't be all that bad of a product.
 
G

Grimm Fandango

Member
FWIW I've lived with Nespresso for a year (but no longer as it was my roommate's). Pretty good coffee, much better than what I've had with Keurig.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Grimm Fandango said:
FWIW I've lived with Nespresso for a year (but no longer as it was my roommate's). Pretty good coffee, much better than what I've had with Keurig.
Click to expand...


Except for nestle's own brand, you can get almost any kind of coffee you can think of from blue mountain to civet beans for keurig You can also use your own fresh ground and reusable pods.

Comparing on taste is faulty.

I do enjoy the default nespresso dark roast though.
 
TTOOLL

TTOOLL

Member
This thing never ends...

A product designer and venture capital partner took apart a Juicero to see what made the notorious $400 juice presser so expensive. What he found was eight separate machined parts and a slew of custom plastic pieces that likely made the presser more expensive than it needed to be.
Click to expand...
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
This story won't end:

u6I57ze.png


https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/715648874346520576
 
E

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
I remember A-Trak promoting this pretty heavy. And not even because he was paid to (he wasn't, at least for much of it).

The demo is definitely people with disposable income, that much is for sure.
 
C

Cowlick

Banned
Squeeze me with your hands if old: Juicero's reducing its price, laying off staff.

The company will focus on the second generation of the machine—what internally it calls v2—to reduce the price. The letter did not detail how much the v2 will cost, but in January, Dunn told Fortune the company was targeting less than $300. A source close to the company said the plan is now in the $200 range. Juicero started out pricing its machines at $699 before saying in January that it would drop the cost.

Dunn’s letter said the company will lay off about 25% of its staff as part of the shift, particularly in sales and marketing, as it focuses on product development and manufacturing.
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http://fortune.com/2017/07/14/juicero-layoffs-lower-prices/
 
T

teiresias

Member
The most annoying part of this whole saga was having to listen to a bunch of tech journalists blabber on about how this company was really all about revolutionizing food distribution channels. Newsflash you dimwitted, bubble-dwelling, insular, Silicon Valley fondled tech journalist morons . . . the people that can afford this thing are not the ones that need food distribution models to change to bring them better access to produce. Morons.

I've never rolled my eyes at as many tech podcasts as I have over this damn thing.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
teiresias said:
The most annoying part of this whole saga was having to listen to a bunch of tech journalists blabber on about how this company was really all about revolutionizing food distribution channels. Newsflash you dimwitted, bubble-dwelling, insular, Silicon Valley fondled tech journalist morons . . . the people that can afford this thing are not the ones that need food distribution models to change to bring them better access to produce. Morons.

I've never rolled my eyes at as many tech podcasts as I have over this damn thing.
Click to expand...

I have never seen it exposed to anything except mockery tbh
 
T

teiresias

Member
Stinkles said:
I have never seen it exposed to anything except mockery tbh
Click to expand...

Maybe they were just trying to find SOMETHING good to say about the whole thing, but they were earnestly talking about how the business model was about the distribution channels, etc. I was literally yelling at my phone about how stupid they were. These people fetishize anything that has venture funding.
 
J

jayu26

Member
teiresias said:
The most annoying part of this whole saga was having to listen to a bunch of tech journalists blabber on about how this company was really all about revolutionizing food distribution channels. Newsflash you dimwitted, bubble-dwelling, insular, Silicon Valley fondled tech journalist morons . . . the people that can afford this thing are not the ones that need food distribution models to change to bring them better access to produce. Morons.

I've never rolled my eyes at as many tech podcasts as I have over this damn thing.
Click to expand...
You had to get that out of your system didn't you?

O Silicon Valley, what will you think you next? Something equally silly I presume.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
teiresias said:
Maybe they were just trying to find SOMETHING good to say about the whole thing, but they were earnestly talking about how the business model was about the distribution channels, etc. I was literally yelling at my phone about how stupid they were. These people fetishize anything that has venture funding.
Click to expand...

Your perspective does remind me of the crazy press for the Segway before it was revealed:

"This is going to change the way civilization even thinks about cities!"

sNUGeJY.jpg
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
teiresias said:
The most annoying part of this whole saga was having to listen to a bunch of tech journalists blabber on about how this company was really all about revolutionizing food distribution channels. Newsflash you dimwitted, bubble-dwelling, insular, Silicon Valley fondled tech journalist morons . . . the people that can afford this thing are not the ones that need food distribution models to change to bring them better access to produce. Morons.

I've never rolled my eyes at as many tech podcasts as I have over this damn thing.
Click to expand...

Stinkles said:
I have never seen it exposed to anything except mockery tbh
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm with Stinkles. Every tech podcast I listened to was throwing tomatoes at this thing and having a great time roasting it.
 
H

hirokazu

Member
teiresias said:
The most annoying part of this whole saga was having to listen to a bunch of tech journalists blabber on about how this company was really all about revolutionizing food distribution channels. Newsflash you dimwitted, bubble-dwelling, insular, Silicon Valley fondled tech journalist morons . . . the people that can afford this thing are not the ones that need food distribution models to change to bring them better access to produce. Morons.

I've never rolled my eyes at as many tech podcasts as I have over this damn thing.
Click to expand...
Which tech journalists are these? I'd never heard of this until the OP and ever since I've only heard mockery and ridicule. Not sure about the buzz before that though.
 
B

Beartruck

Member
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I once made a "juicer" for a grade school project that was essentially a box with a baseball bat taped to it, and that was better thought out than this.
 
F

Faiz

Member
angelic said:
Also, slicing fruit pretty much makes it nutrition-free within the hour, you are just removing sugar from a DRM bag, theres nothing healthy about it.
Click to expand...

That sounded like bullshit and turns out it is. Closest thing I can find is apparently an FDA report showing cut fruit loses half the vitamin C in one to two weeks.

Weeks. "Nutrition free with the hour". Give us a break.
 
S

Snowybreak

Member
angelic said:
Also, slicing fruit pretty much makes it nutrition-free within the hour, you are just removing sugar from a DRM bag, theres nothing healthy about it.
Click to expand...

Wait... What? Is this sarcasm? That makes absolutely no sense. What, does it evaporate or something? Because most vitamins would just stay as deposits in the fruit, even after dehydration. And it isn't like they're all volatile. Are you slicing apart the vitamins on a molecular level or something?
 
angelic

angelic

Banned
Dunno why I said "all nutrition", hyperbole on my part, but they do lose some from the cutting and storing. By the time they're processed, packaged and sent in some DRM'd bag, you're definitely worse off than just blitzing up some fruit yourself.
 
N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
angelic said:
So "make" equals "use 400 dollar machine to remove from a DRMd bag".

Also, slicing fruit pretty much makes it nutrition-free within the hour, you are just removing sugar from a DRM bag, theres nothing healthy about it.
Click to expand...

Show me some receipts on this please.


Also, if they made this $100 to $150 and sliced the prices of the packs in half I'd actually buy one.

I love fresh juice, but making it is a PITA with cleaning the machine and all.. and buying it as at a juice bar makes me feel like a douche hipster and costs too much.
 
angelic

angelic

Banned
NervousXtian said:
Show me some receipts on this please.


Also, if they made this $100 to $150 and sliced the prices of the packs in half I'd actually buy one.

I love fresh juice, but making it is a PITA with cleaning the machine and all.. and buying it as at a juice bar makes me feel like a douche hipster and costs too much.
Click to expand...

do you even read the thread?
 
M

miller.skippins

Banned
Next invention from Silicon Valley..

The Robotron Chewer 2000.

A machine that helps you to chew your food so that you don't have to as chewing your food with your teeth can induce wear and tear on them.
 
kamineko

kamineko

Does his best thinking in the flying car
I'm surprised they found investors who thought this would make money

Then again, this whole mess is a big tax write-off
 
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