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Comment by epipping | Hacker News Reader

After watching their promo video at the top of the page, I'm left wondering two things:

- If the machine takes away all my liberty (I cannot use it on my fruit and vegetables) and even their packs need to be refrigerated and stay good only for 8 days, can't I just buy the resulting juice and put it in my fridge? (If I left the bottle closed, that would last equally long). So what do I gain?

- They're using QR codes to check that I'm not using their packs beyond the "best by" date or try to trick the machine into squeezing a competitor's cheaper packs. And for that, they need a camera on the inside. And WiFi. Didn't somebody at some point notice that the way they're treating their customers is really disrespectful? This is the whole printer-cartridge-thing all over again.

EDIT: layout/typos

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You gain the prestige of saying "you want a fresh-squeezed juice?" to your guests. Keurig grew HUGE in large part thanks to the appearance of higher class it brought to ordinary homes and offices. Instead of fooling with tools, you click a button on a sleek looking SV futuremachine, and presto.

Humans are weird, and this is a very good marketing strategy.

I'm not familiar with Keurig, but I assume it is similar to Nespresso?

Nespresso became extremely popular because:

1) The machines are very cheap (compared to other espresso makers)

2) They take a fraction of the time to prepare coffee (compared to other methods)

3) They are extremely easy to clean

4) Capsules have a long shelf life, you can get them in small quantities, so it doesn't matter if you drink 3 cups of coffee per day or 3 cups of coffee per month.

5) They have really fancy stores in top locations where they sell their capsules

Everything about Nespresso is convenient and feels great. There is no DRM, because that would not be convenient.

The only thing that's convenient about the Juicero machine is that it is easy to clean. Everything else about it, from the short shelf live to the subscription pricing, to the long time it takes to make juice, is just inconvenient. The DRM and Wifi requirement is just stupid.

The fact that anyone can make a sort of decent cup of coffee with a nespresso is also important.

Additionally, the taste benefit of nespresso over instant coffee or something similar is probably much higher than juicero over the best bottled juice.

Those coffee 'cup' machines automate a majority of the series steps and outputs a decent coffee... perfect for office environments or mornings before work where people don't have time to grind or babysit a drip machine.

The value is quite clear in the context of alternatives. Which is where I believe Juicero stumbles when one considers the various alternatives. Especially with the high cost and fast expiration dates.

I thought nespresso had DRM to stop other coffee pods.

I think you're thinking of Keurig's K-cups (a different and of course wholly incompatible means of coffee capsule thingy)

No DRM as far as I can tell. You can make your own pods with simple kits which are basically just an empty capsule and some foil you stick on the top.

Indeed. Lots of supermarkets and coffee brands in the UK sell their own Nespresso-compatible pods, often much cheaper than the "real" ones.

In Germany, Nestle tried and failed to ban sales of unlicensed pods:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...

No DRM, but patents on the machine and the capsules. Enforceability of the patents varies a lot between countries, so in some there are non-Nespreso capsules, in others there aren't.

> 1) The machines are very cheap (compared to other espresso makers)

Simply not true, I have an 160eur Delonghi espresso machine which takes grounded coffee (doesn't grind it itself), and it's pretty awesome for what it cost me. Every 2 weeks, I go to a local coffee shop where I buy on high-quality freshly roasted coffee which I let the shop grind for me. It gives me way better coffee than what I get from a Nespresso.

Sure it's a bit more cleanup, but the results are a lot better, and it allows me to pretty easily make a killer cappuccino.

> 4) Capsules have a long shelf life, you can get them in small quantities...

Coffee, once roasted and grounded does not have a long shelf-life, taste and quality goes down remarkably. That's probably also what makes the most difference in quality comparing a Nespresso with my 'fresher' coffee. The capsules being packed in vacuum does improve this, but I wouldn't keep them for longer than a year.

I get my coffee in 250g bags, which is about 15 espresso's, that's not exactly 'large quantities'.

> 5) They have really fancy stores in top locations where they sell their capsules

I prefer local specialized shops that know what the hell they are talking about.

But yes I get the convenience and cleaning. Time to prep is a thing, with my machine, it takes about 1.5 to 2 minutes from start to finish, including 30 sec brew-time and quickly rinsing and wiping everything - which isn't that bad in my book - but yes, a Nespresso scores points here. I don't think I would go through the hassle at work every time I wanted a cup.

Except that Keurig/Nesspresso/Tassimo machines actually make coffee using ground beans. It's a convenience thing, sure, but they are roughly the same as an espresso machine that you don't have to fill up yourself. Juicero was squeezing juice out of a pack. It could come in a bottle and you could pour it yourself, the product would be exactly identical.

I have a Nespresso machine and highly disagree with you. The worst part of preparing Coffee is cleaning and the time required when I just want the coffee and not to mess with tools.

With the Nespresso, I just put the capsule and I get my coffee. The cleaning is easy and I don't need to clean stuff for every coffee.

Sure, you might do a whole bottle of coffee and consume it during the day. But the machine gives you convenience and it is affordable.

I have no problem putting 200-300USD on a coffee machine.

For juice? Well, I like it fresh. I didn't try Juicero but I highly doubt that it compares to freshly squeezed oranges.

But the printer-cartridge-thing made lots of money, so people probably want more of that!

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