Introducing waste for activities that happen as frequently as coffee drinking is why it's different.
I really can't understand why offices use keurig.
It eliminates the interpersonal drama that can waste crazy amounts of time in an office. If there's a large central carafe of coffee, it can lead to:
people fighting over what brand/roast/strength to make
people fighting over a freeloader not refilling it
people fighting over who cleans it and how often
etc.
(I know that sounds crazy, but I've seen it)
With the pods, everyone can get their own coffee/tea/whatever in a little independant transaction, no drama. To the company there might be a slight increase in cost (but still almost nothing) and increase in waste (do most companies care?), but their employees are happier, so it's an easy trade off.
Edit: I'm not saying I support the use of these pods in offices, just giving some of the reasoning companies have embraced them in some places.
The coffee maker has one brew position and two extra hot plates. At any given time there are three carafes sitting on the hotplates, about 1/2 full. And they've been sitting there for a couple hours. When I want a cup of coffee, I smell the existing ones, toss whichever one is the most burnt, and brew a whole pot. Then I pour my one cup. Maybe one other person will have a cup and the rest gets tossed when someone else has to make room for their choice.
I'm not saying I'd prefer a Keurig—I prefer drip-brewed to that—but I understand why an office would like to have one. Not having to wait for an entire pot to brew would be nice.
You could even argue that there's less waste in espresso-style…people make a single drink at a time, and generally drink it. With large carafes of drip coffee, a lot gets thrown away because sitting too long on a hot plate causes it to taste burnt.
I replied to worklogin's comment about lambasting the waste aspect as being self-righteous. I know the article is about DRM but we're having a tangential discussion about the waste...