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Comment by civilian | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, coffee snobbery incoming: drip coffee is pretty different from espresso. You're right that there's a "luxury" aspect, but there's also a product difference. Maybe the product difference is only 20% of the cost in total, but it's still there. I don't drink drip coffee anymore, it's gross. :[

Also-- aren't video games already an example of Software as an Experience?

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"Espresso" and "drip" aren't types of coffee; they are types of coffee preparation: grind and brew. Drip gets a bad reputation because it's associated with offices, waiting rooms and cheap diners. The espresso method does extract a different profile of substances from the coffee; but it's subjective whether that is better or worse.

Espresso made with poor quality coffee (bad roast, crappy beans, roasted too long ago, incorrect grind, etc) is going to be just as gross as diner drip.

Another thing to consider is: you can make drip manually, whereby you control the drip rate, total quantity, and water temperature. Not all drip is automatic.

It's only fair that I got nitpicked in my nitpicking. :D The quality of beans is definitely a factor, but the difference in acidity from the different preparations is a big factor for me. Especially since I've developed some gastritis, having a less-acidic caffeine delivery system is important.

If acidity is a concern, you might want to try cold brew. It's considerably less acidic.

You can mitigate the acidity somewhat by having mocha or adding milk or creamer.

Acidity is a big bugaboo for me and I tend to take my coffee as either mocha or with two cream, one sugar.

I watched it happen in the auto industry. You had all these small vendors selling headlights, grills and bumpers. Then someone came along who had bought out some of the little guys and offered the Big 3 a packaged front end of the car. They handled all the engineering post design and had a complete front end of the car that just clipped on.

They were non-union and in a rural area where wages were lower. The price was lower than buying everything individually and the Big 3 saved lots of money on their very high labor costs.

What's to stop people from doing a roll up, buying a bunch of litle SaaS companies and offering a package that is a complete solution? It would be discounted of course like MS Office back in the day which killed off the category leaders like Lotus 123, dBase and WordPerfect.

That is a far more plausible scenario than what this guy proposes.

...and eventually Magna assembles entire cars for Mercedes, and tried to launch their own car.

Also this, obviously: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton...

That's the story of Asus too, I think- they started as a supplier to Dell.

That's what I linked to.

It may happen, but to to answer your question "what to stop...": probably not to "stop", but make it difficult is the fact that lights, grills, and bumpers are much easier to integrate than software products.

It is much harder to integrate bumpers and lights than software products. There is a whole sales cycle in the auto industry based around new model years. The bumper factory and the grill factory have to bid for the new model. Then the automation supplier helps them re-tool their manufacturing line. The logistics companies set up routes between the new bid winners, etc.

I do find it hilarious how we always defend our illogical likes whenever they are pointed out directly.

There is a very slight product difference in any luxury experience. It adds to the experience after all. However this is meaningless in the overall comparison. You don't drink drip coffee anymore because you love the other experience. It's obviously not "gross" because you were drinking it just fine before you were exposed to espresso. Maybe at some point you'll become disillusioned in being a coffee snob and then go back to drip. It happens.

This isn't unique to you or coffee. You could say pretty much exactly the same thing about whatever brands/hobbies I'm into and I'd feel exactly like you do: that my preference was justified by more than pure emotional connection. In reality, our choices as consumers are 90% emotional, which is why advertising works so well after all.

Nah, drip coffee is gross, and I say this as someone who comes from a country where espresso is the "default" (if you want drip, you'll have to make it yourself, every coffeshop/diner/restaurant sells espresso, and for ~60¢/cup).

Sometimes one just doesn't realize how crappy the previous version was until one tries the new one.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/915/

Beware over-training your ability to discern differences. Such subtlety might give you an advantage in some fields... or it might remove your ability to enjoy basic food and drink.

Try a nice Ethiopian blend from a Chemex made by an experienced barista and come back to me.

Espresso is as different to filter coffee as icecream is to milk. They're different products, made with different material mix and different processes, different roasts, different grind size, different bean choice. They're two different things.

An espresso can't be better than filter coffee any more than an apple can be better than an orange.

Of course it can. It's just a subjective measure. It's better to me, even if it's worse, or even incomparable, to others.

All of which is irrelevant to the question of whether it's just snobbery or not, which was what I was discussing.

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