It’s worse than that. Obviously he’s not talking about the coffee. He doesn’t even paint it as good-quality coffee. He’s saying people go for the experience of enjoying the coffee in a pleasant environment. He actually believes people go to Starbucks because they like being at Starbucks.
That used to be their whole shtick, the third place experience. They wanted people to treat Starbucks as where they go when they want to relax or meet with friends, a place outside of their home and work, where the baristas knew their names and would chat and make them feel welcome. Especially a lot of older folks liked that, and would make it part of their routine. Starbucks threw that all away when they went to prioritising drive thru and mobile order/pay systems. It’s a shareholder business and this is capitalism. It’s either neverending growth or death.
It’s worse than that. Obviously he’s not talking about the coffee. He doesn’t even paint it as good-quality coffee. He’s saying people go for the experience of enjoying the coffee in a pleasant environment. He actually believes people go to Starbucks because they like being at Starbucks.
That used to be their whole shtick, the third place experience. They wanted people to treat Starbucks as where they go when they want to relax or meet with friends, a place outside of their home and work, where the baristas knew their names and would chat and make them feel welcome. Especially a lot of older folks liked that, and would make it part of their routine. Starbucks threw that all away when they went to prioritising drive thru and mobile order/pay systems. It’s a shareholder business and this is capitalism. It’s either neverending growth or death.
I don’t even think he’s wrong