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Woah... what's with the venom? The original article made a fair point: a coffee is more than the sum of its beans. Maybe it seems foreign to you because you don't drink coffee, but it's certainly true for me - buying a coffee is something I look forward to. Much more than I look forward to trying dozens of online services that provide some minor convenience to my life.

I bet the author enjoys writing too: so creating that blog post might cost more than a latte - but the experience of thinking, writing, editing and posting something online provides value to the author. Seems like a reasonable thing to do then!

The venom is because this is literally nothing but a childish contrarian argument being made because someone can't follow their own logic to conclusion. He can't see the clear point they're making of saying that you think the 2 pounds isn't shit to pay for the experience of coffee, so why not risk a similarly insignificant amount of money on a product that might have a similarly religious experience on you.

If you don't think you'd HAVE that experience, then once again: Your problem isn't with the line about coffee, IT IS WITH THE PRODUCT.

He's taking a whole lot of time and tossing it out the window because he's wanting to be passive aggressive toward a product he doesn't think is worth a damn, which is even more inane than vaguebooking.

Your perfectly reasonable point could be made without the weird aggression.

You're probably right. I'm just sick of childish arguments being treated as brilliant insights. Doesn't exactly help my case though, does it?

Most people aren't calling it a brilliant insight. Most people are just saying that it's a reasonable point.

When I'm selling my widget I might think that £2 is insignificant, and is the same as a cup of coffee, and billions of people buy coffee every day, so why don't people spend that insignificant amount of money on my widget? Well, emotionally, £2 is not insignificant.

To get someone to give me £2 I have to overcome some barriers. One way is to compare it to something that seems insignificant, such as a cup of coffee.

That might have worked so far, but at some point people are going to catch on and it's not going to be as effective and I'm going to have to find something else to try.

This article is an indication that people are starting to resist the coffee comparison.

But I do hope it doesn't become the new "you're not the customer you're the product", because that's overplayed.

You keep calling it childish. I have no idea what you mean by that. I think it's a pretty straightforward argument. You'll also see a lot of personal finance articles that will tell you to skip your morning coffee to save some money. I always think, well, my morning coffee is what money is for! This coffee thing is definitely part of the zeitgeist and it seems reasonable to address it.

I mean, the bar started at trying to make coffee-drinkers feel like cheapskates so they'll blow a dollar on an app.

This ain't exactly the maturity high-jump.

The guy is making a pretty simple point. It has nothing to do with "2 pounds isn't shit to pay for the experience of coffee" it is who are you to tell me what value i get from a 2 pound cup of coffee

It seems pretty clear to me that this is not about the product being offered, but about the idea that selling your product by belittling the rewards from a different transaction of similar monetary value is utterly worthless. The line about the coffee is absurd and doesn't add any value to the product being sold.

I don't really think the tone of your comments is helpful in making the case you are trying to put across btw.

What's weird about it though is that I've never seen these comparisons as belittling other products. They're merely using an easily-understandable point of comparison.

I guess I tend to read the subtext of it as:

You would spend $2 on just a cup of coffee. The entire concept is that a cup of coffee is a minor thing, you buy it practically without considering it's tangible benefit.

It's supposed to shock you into thinking Wow they are right I should spend money on product x since it is less than this thing I buy out of habit more than for its value

You can read it as a statement of "$2 is not very much money at all" - but then I have a problem with comparing unrelated products that simply happen to share a price point.

"You'd spend 20 bucks going to the cinema, why would you not spend the same amount on a garden fork?"

In the end the blogpost was suggesting that you cannot compare your product to a coffee, because you don't know how much I value that coffee beyond that I am willing to spend $2. This gives you no information about how I would value your service, because it is not a coffee based product being served to me with a smile.

>"This almost seems like just someone being contrarian for the sake of it."

Retorted a very angry person, disagreeing sharply with a short, lighthearted post written about how enjoyable latte is.

From the sounds of it, you're a bit out of touch with the common man these marketing lines are trying to reach. If they were trying to appeal to you, they would say, "hey you, come be super negative about other people's ideas! There's an endless selection of directors and producers to call stupid and childish!"

A few bucks a day still matters quite a bit to me. And I love latte. And I really liked the post.

I actually thought this was a rather profound way of thinking about that line "costs less than a cup of coffee" I used to work in public radio and this was a line that people threw in all the time and I always resisted using it. He hit the nail on the head when he said that this was a high bar to get over because I love my coffee so much that if I lay down to sleep at night and realize that I have not pre-loaded my coffee to be brewed in the morning, I will get out of bed and go through the long and loud process of grinding beans, cleaning out the pot etc. That is in part because I am a caffeine junkie but the other part is because I love the routine. I love the smell, I love the rush- I took it to mean that he is saying the 2 dollars you spend is only part of the equation and isn't a fair comparison to make to an equal expenditure-- he was just throwing out an idea... nothing to mock him over.

This comment is more than 100 words longer than the actual piece itself and seems particularly vitriolic in nature for a personal blog post about an observation he had.

It's a valid argument to make that, to him, comparing product cost to an experience he truly enjoys isn't the most effective way to convert him into a customer. At the very least it's something to consider for anyone who works with marketing.

I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as another slant on the pricing-on-value-not-cost debate.

The point of the article as I read it is not that £2 is cheap - hell I come from a generation where the idea of charging £2 for a cup of bloody coffee seems insanely expensive - but that you're not spending the £2 because it's cheap. You're spending it because it brings you significant value.

Selling yourself on cost, especially comparative cost to a different product/service, is not - in my experience anyway - a terribly effective technique outside of commodities. For just the reason outlined in this article. Sell on value instead.

No, you're spending the 2 pounds because you think it's worth it.

So that STILL makes his argument nothing more than "I don't think your product is worth the 2 pounds" argument, which still makes the logic of his post absolutely missing the mark.

I don't even drink coffee

I'm fairly certain this is why you're having trouble relating to the enthusiasm of the author. I'm not even joking - the reward response to coffee is huge.

My problem isn't with their enthusiasm and coffee. My mind is capable enough to understand that the majority of Americans absolutely adore their coffee. Y'know what I absolutely adore? Pudding. Pudding is god damned amazing. I love the taste, the temperature, the texture, the weight of it in your mouth, everything. I fucking love pudding.

That still doesn't give me a good reason to passively aggressively attack a statement instead of a specific product simply because I can't be bothered to see the point the person is making, that 2 pounds isn't very much at all to pay for the wonderful experience of having pudding, so why not see if their product similarly will still have an insignificant price to you while giving you a great experience.

The tag-line "less than your morning latte" carries an implied claim that the product has comparable worth. The author of the linked post departs from that claim by relating the pleasures of enjoying coffee. That's all it is: humane writing about coffee and advertising. There is nothing passive aggressive about it.

Your comments about it, however, are straight-up aggressive, and I honestly don't understand why.

Wow, I feel that you missed the point.

Coffee gives a guaranteed positive experience - you know what you're getting - and the latte is not the only reason for that.

People are happy to pay for coffee even if there's a fair chance the coffee will be bad. If the service is good, and you get a relaxing place to sit and work, and you get a caffeine hit, that's usually more important than the product. Money spent on coffee is never wasted - you always get more value than the amount spent on the whole experience.

If you buy an app and it's bad - that's the end of your experience.

Even if your coffee is bad, you will likely get a refund or replacement, if you care to spend a second to ask.

If your app is bad - the money's gone and you have no recourse. You might be able to fight your way to a refund (but you probably will view it as sunk cost) and there's no way you'll get a better app as a replacement.

App developers who use the throw-away line "less than you spent on your morning coffee" need to be more aware of what they're comparing their experience to. Apps really don't compare well.

"I wouldn't say that with such disdain if not for the fact that you clearly think the world of your coffee, yet can't bother to think for the extra two seconds it takes to realize that there is definitively something in your life you buy regularly, that is of no use to you, that you get more because it's simply there."

Then it is very stupid to buy it, so the "less than your latte" argument becomes "make a small stupid decision because you made a large one". Not very appealing.

>Yes, your coffee is great and wonderful, it's what you look forward to, etc etc. I'll first say that the majority of people don't have such an intimate connection to coffee

...

>I don't even drink coffee and I get this analogy they're making.

I think those two quotes are related. You don't understand.

...

>I wouldn't say that with such disdain if not for the fact that you clearly think the world of your coffee, yet can't bother to think for the extra two seconds it takes to realize that there is definitively something in your life you buy regularly, that is of no use to you, that you get more because it's simply there.

caffeine is by far my favorite addictive drug. It's special in that most other drugs that are even close to as pleasurable carry with them significant dangers, or, at the very least, interfere with my ability to work effectively. Caffeine is the opposite; not only does it feel good, it makes me far more effective.

Like most addictive drugs, though, the delivery mechanism? it tastes really good to the regular users. And much like old scotch, fans can get something out of relatively small differences in process. I mean, I am okay being actively dependent on caffeine in ways that I'm not okay being actively dependent on alcohol, so price does matter more... I've got a moderately high threshold for "expensive" when it comes to whiskey, for instance, 'cause I'll go through a few bottles a year. If I needed a double to get up every morning, I'd pay more attention to how much the stuff costs.

But yeah, uh, middle-class people regularly paying extra for "special preparation" of their drug of choice is a luxury, to be certain, but it is a very traditional luxury.

> I wouldn't say that with such disdain if not for the fact that you clearly think the world of your coffee, yet can't bother to think for the extra two seconds it takes to realize that there is definitively something in your life you buy regularly, that is of no use to you, that you get more because it's simply there.

I honestly can't think of anything. I shop for food once a month, (mostly online) pay my water bill, buy myself new clothes from time to time, car repairs and fuel, pay my martial arts teacher, obviously I've got to buy hair-care products and stuff like that so I don't look atrocious, I spend a reasonable amount on books. But I can't think of anything I just impulse buy and get nothing out of. I don't tend to impulse buy at all - I'm not the sort of person who walks into a shop unless I know there's something I want to buy in there. I find my money goes much further if I make a few high-value purchases that are really nice.

Heck, truth be told I rarely buy coffee. When I used to work in an office I bought an atomic coffee maker and a hot-plate - which I still have - and we made coffee in the office which was vastly nicer than the stuff at the coffee shop.

I suppose from time to time I go out to eat or drink, but there you're buying a social experience as well as the food and it's not clear to me that your $ to pleasure ratio isn't going to be vastly superior to coffee there.

Some people do waste a large amount of money, but I find it hard to believe it's a universal. What is it you think I'm likely to be wasting a lot of money on?

I don't know, I feel the same about my morning coffee. If Starbucks started offering coffee services online, people's perception of the product will change dramatically. Suddenly the 2 pounds will look like a massive amount to pay for a 'cup of coffee'.

Are you sure? I'd argue buying a physical item online and having it delivered is different in the consumer's mind than buying virtual downloads like music, television series, etc.

One can be held, consumed, worn, looked at, etc.

The other is a potentially unbounded virtual expense. This isn't necessarily a logical way to look at it, it's a safe way to look at it because deep down we all know we don't feel the usual lightening of our wallets.

So, I think we naturally set a higher bar for those "virtual" purchases we buy. There's also other factors, like us having foreknowledge of coffee.

Coffee is coffee. Even when it's shit, it's still an okay experience and you still got your performance boost. That app though...who knows. They're all different. It's shiny and I want to buy it, but will I really ever open it?

You're not seeing the end of the logic chain. You're also failing to see that there are reasons the people that make statements like this, make the statement.

* In your head, 2 pounds sounds insignificant to pay for anything(because it is). That's why you pay for the coffee. You think it's worth that.

* You immediately associate their product with something useful, that enables you to work every day. You can barely make it without your coffee, and their product will similarly make your life much easier with it than without.

* It wouldn't change people's perception nearly as much as you think. People don't get Starbucks thinking, "It's 2 pounds, what the fuck do I care", they get Starbucks thinking "It's my coffee, I want my coffee"

It isn't about how you feel about your morning coffee. For one, you're not the center of the universe, obviously this comment is meant to be seen by thousands who don't have such a religious experience with their coffee. Second, if Starbucks had a way to magically teleport coffee through the computer screen, it STILL wouldn't change how people look at 2 pounds in relation to getting something they think is worth 2 pounds. These aren't people glorifying coffee, it's people making a value comparison to try and gloss over the risk that amounts to little(2 pounds) more than time.

2 pounds are extremely expensive for a cup of coffee. In Italy, where you don't usually sit down for an espresso it's about 25% of that or .6-1 euro (depending on the city and the area). OP is making the point that he doesn't pay for the coffee, but for the internet café.