Convenience, obviously. Why own a car when you could ride a bike? Sure, it will take you 10x as long to get anywhere, but you can always just leave earlier.
Your metric for what is or isn't convenient isn't necessarily anybody else's, and other people aren't "wrong" for having different metrics than yours. Optimizing for time spent in the process of making the thing is a perfectly cromulent priority.
I just find it endlessly fascinating to watch people extrapolate from their personal preferences, in the face of a demonstrably valuable (in the "it has value to someone" sense — because people are buying the things, which, in a capitalist system is definitive of "having value") to "There's no justification ... at all".
They don't even know the alternatives exist. Marketing is king.
You're misinterpreting the point. It's not quibbling over whether the customer values the product, that's self-evident. It's "not justifiable" in the ethical sense in light of environmental impact and the alternatives available. People just don't know.
People opt for Keurig because it's quick and user friendly. Pop in a pod, hit a button, and then continue your morning routine. The entire user experience takes all of 10 seconds which has tangible value. I agree with your ethics argument, but I still don't believe that people are just buying Keurigs because they are blinded by marketing.
People are making a choice — an admittedly consequential one, yes — but they're making it based on their personal priorities, not because marketing has deluded them into thinking there's no other way. They're paying someone else to have done all the work of making their cup of coffee, except loading the pod, pushing the button, and making sure the water tank is full enough — for them, at least.
Hell, even that illustrates the point: in every environment I've ever been with a shared pod coffee machine, I've had to fill the basin, more often than not. People can't even be arsed to make sure there's enough water in the stupid thing for the next person who wants a cuppa. It's laziness.
Other than drip, that's what I'm saying. They aren't aware of convenient alternatives. Stands to reason if they did, they'd buy them.
> they're making it based on their personal priorities, not because marketing has deluded them into thinking there's no other way
I don't think you can divorce marketing impact from consumer choices. Keurig as a priority wouldn't have existed without the advertising effort a priori.
Of course they do.
I think the coffee pod idea took off because people use them at work (it's a pretty good setup for offices), liked the convenience, and end up buying a machine for home.
I have an E61 based espresso machine at home with a flat burr grinder and if it either part were to break today, I'd probably replace it with a Nespresso machine.
Query your friends and family some time.
I disagree on your second point, we can think that it's a morally wrong view to believe that our personal time is worth more than the earth's health.
I'm sure it is for some people, but status signaling is baked into our monkey brains at such a deep level, I find it a bit silly to be something we throw shade at people for doing. But even if Joe the status-signaling pod coffee drinker is status signaling, he probably also appreciate the extra five minutes in the morning, or whatever.
Also, I've never tasted an instant coffee that didn't disappoint, usually profoundly. The pods are actual, real-time brewed coffee, with the same level of convenience.
The tasteful way is to invite people to visit your home where they can see it.
The tacky way is to tell people about it.
Another excellent example. Now we have coffee which tastes awful and still takes longer.
It takes about two seconds to pop in a k-cup, maybe 20 more every N cups to fill up water. Also allows for different grounds to be used on a per cup basis.
Convenience and speed is the entire reason these things exist.
Now, I'd never get one of these machines, because it tastes like ass - I tried it at work. People at the office walk up, pick from 20 different flavors, and make their cup. What is it you suggest to replace that? 20 huge office pots that someone refills from a huge drip machine, so some are out and some get underused and tossed/refilled in a few hours?
Your comparison is what does not make sense. You are taking your use case, which does not apply to 90% of the self-brew cases. Literally the definition of a strawman. I personally think cars are a bad invention, and I don't see the use. I live across the street from work, and once a week take a lyft. Why are all these people driving?? I just can't figure it out.
Now, here's what I do actually do. I have Kona green cherry and Peaberry light roast. I take a cup of green and grind it fine in my conical grinder. I double-filter tap water, boil it, then filter it again the next day once cool. I use that to boil the green for about 10min in a large steel pot. I drink half of that mixed with fairlife fat free milk. Good for 1st drink of the morning. While that's going on, I grind 2 cups of peaberry, and dump it into the pot, adding a lot more boiling water. Boil for 2 minutes, let sit for 10. Now it's mixed light roast peaberry and green, for that lightly charred lawnmowerbag taste. It's naturally quite sweet, but sometimes I'll add a splenda.
I spend more than an hour per day on coffee. The process is relaxing. When I'm at work running from one meeting to the next, I pop in a cup with some weird flavor and go on my way. If I had to do what you do, I wouldn't do it at all. That's the price of your 6-7 minutes - a barrier to entry that's just too damn high.
People like to virtue-signal but when they really want something all convictions go out the window.
Ours is a small UK city, larger cities the traffic is slower still.
Somehow, I don't think that's were "most" of the people live.
And as I wrote that last bit, I realized that I should not have said "in the _world_".
For the vast majority of people in the parts of the world where using pod coffee machines is a meaningful thing to talk about, your commute is a driving or transit kind of thing, not walking or biking.