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Comment by dkarapetyan | Hacker News Reader

Is it really that hard to get a coffee presser and some ground coffee?

Why does it bother you that others wish to make some task more convenient? And BTW, there are bio-degradable (compostable) cups that one can buy, if that was part of your concern. The office manager at my company says they are actually cheaper, too.

It doesn't bother me that people want to make certain things convenient what bothers me is the commoditization of every last thing in our consumer driven culture. Is your life really going to be so much better if you can make your coffee in 1 minute instead of 2 minutes? I really don't see any other convenience with ready-made coffee other than the time component. If that convenience comes at the cost of locked down devices for making coffee then it is really short-sighted of people to buy into that "convenience".

In a workplace environment with a shared kitchen it absolutely is worth it to an average manager to avoid the spills and mess of grounds and keep everything in the pods. This is where I saw most Keurigs first, and then it seemed to "hijack" its way into the household because people got addicted to the convenience that they enjoyed at the office.

Where I work there is a machine that dispenses coffee (Americano: basically an espresso plus piping hot water to fill the cup up). Such machines are more expensive than the typical office Keurig, but for an office of any size not prohibitively so. For office coffee it's actually quite good, and far and away better than any swill out of a Keurig I've ever had the misfortune of drinking.

> Is your life really going to be so much better if you can make your coffee in 1 minute instead of 2 minutes?

No. But if I have fifty things to do every day, one of which is making coffee, and I can shave a minute or two off of each one, I've saved lots of time.

> what bothers me is the commoditization of every last thing in our consumer driven culture.

A guy picking coffee beans could say the same thing about your pre-roasted pre-ground holier-than-Kuerig choice.

If you have 50 things to do in a day then coffee is the least of your worries. I also don't understand this really weird optimization mindset that some people have and that they apply to every single activity in their life. Some of my greatest insights have happened while I was just daydreaming or in general just doing nothing. Sometimes people should really stop and smell the roses.

> If you have 50 things to do in a day then coffee is the least of your worries.

It seems like people who do 50 things in a day are those most in need of mild stimulants.

I hear you, I really do.

Most of the coffee I drink is $5 a cup local artisan-roasted pour over. But I can't tell you how many times popping a pod in the Kuerig as I rushed out the door saved me - and gave me the time to smell other-than-coffee roses.

It's presumptuous to pick one thing you like taking the time to do and accuse those who choose to do other things slowly of not doing anything slowly.

For most people, Kuerigs aren't destroying mindfulness or presence, either by force or as one of a thousand cuts.

I can appreciate a quick coffee, but around here most people just use instant for that use-case. Some people seem to prefer the taste of the pods, but I don't find it much different. Instant is considerably cheaper, and also keeps from adding the clutter of a coffee-specific gadget to the kitchen.

> If you have 50 things to do in a day then coffee is the least of your worries.

Right, and the person getting upset at the very idea of a one-button coffee machine is the one worrying about coffee, not person who has already purchased and is happily using the one-button coffee machine.

Sometimes people should really stop and smell the roses.

And the less time I have to spend preparing my coffee, the more time have to sit with my coffee and do just that.

You're missing the point. Coffee is the roses in this case.

It's convenience at the expense of money and flavor. It also increases waste.

The enormous amount of waste? And I question how bio-degradable those cups are, unless you mean in the sense that everything biodegrades... eventually. Plus the expense. Prices seem to be about 50c/cup [1:3] which is just awful; you can get really good coffee for that much money with just a bit of work. Keurig coffee generally tastes pretty bad imo.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/San-Francisco-Bay-Coffee-Breakfast/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Grove-Square-Cappuccino-Vanilla-24-Cou...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Keurig-Original-Donut-K-Cup-Regular/dp...

You mention Grove Square...they were the worst. Interesting thing about them was to get around the (now expired) filter patents, they used instant coffee rather than using coffee grounds. They were much worse than your standard Keurig.

We use [1] at the office. It seems they are only 97% bio-degradable. Does that mean I shouldn't be composting them? And 50 cents is not bad per cup (cheaper than brand name Keurig). Making the coffee yourself (buying grinds or beans), it will still cost you $.25 - $.35 per cup. Pretty small difference IMO.

Now taste is another matter, but I'm not much of connoisseur, so I don't really pay too much attention. I mostly drink for the warmth and the caffeine =)

Well, I can get 6lbs of coffee at Costco for $42.99 (price from their website). According to Folgers for 6floz of water (a small cup of coffee) you need 1tbsp of ground coffee. Another site suggests one tbsp of ground coffee would be 4.5-7g. Looks like the coffee pods can brew up to about 12oz.

So per 12oz, coffee beans are going to cost $0.14-$0.22/cup. Since I didn't shop around for prices on the beans, I won't for the k-cups either: the cost per k-cup at Costco seems to be pretty close to ~$0.65/k-cup across the board.

That's at least a 195% increase in cost.

If you're just having the occasional cup of coffee, it's not worth worrying about. At 3 cups a day all year that would be around $500.

If you clear $25/hr after tax, that means you're spending 20 hours at work to pay for the difference. Even if we assume you brew each cup of traditional coffee individually at 2 minutes each to a 1 minute k-cup, you're saving 18.25 hours per year.

Whatever way you cut it, it's seems like it's a net loss to me. And the coffee tastes terrible.

I've mostly seen the machines in offices. They obviously make a lot of sense for the use case for where you have dozens of people who all want different things at different times of day. Big improvement over a communal coffee pot.

All the people who pick up coffee at Dunkin, Starbucks, and McDonald's seem to think so. The cost of Keurig over making your own is a pittance compared to the multiple you are paying at those places, but millions do that daily.

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