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Juicero, a startup that sells a pricey juice press, found that out firsthand. The company's Wi-Fi-enabled machine produces cold-pressed juice out of packets sold exclusively to owners via subscription.
Received as both Silicon Valley cautionary tale and commentary on conspicuous consumption, Juicero's story was chronicled this week in a Bloomberg News piece.
[...] In all, the company raised some $120 million.
But Bloomberg says investors' confidence waned once it emerged that people didn't actually need the press to get juice from the packets but could simply squeeze it out by hand.
A Silicon Valley startup slain before it could blossom into a unicorn.
[Ed. Note: Also at ExtremeTech with a bonus link to Juicero's very silly marketing video.]
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Juicero Squeezed by Press and Internet
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(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday April 22 2017, @06:47PM (2 children)
That's fair enough: $400 for a really top-quality juicer. The point, of course, is that this isn't a juicer. You cannot put a carrot into it, or an apple, or indeed anything but a pre-processed bag. In other words, the juicer is in a factory somewhere, and the end-user has no control over the quality or source of material that went into that bag.
Four tons of pressure - whoopie. High pressure is not actually what you want. For a well-known example, consider olive oil: the really good stuff is "extra virgin", which is released with the least pressure.
Also, as you say, the subscription system is the gimmick. The bags expire in under a week, you apparently have to order at least 5 of each type, and the machine will refuse to press expired packs. So you cannot, for example, buy a supply, and put some in the freezer for later.
Really, it's printer ink scam, but worse.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @07:18PM
To be fair, the bags expire in one week because they're using fresh fruit that's the part of this that I have the least amount of trouble with. They're processing the produce and not adding preservatives which is going to result in a lessened shelf-life once the consumer gets it. That's probably a part of why they need the bar code as this type of juicing makes it really easy to get food poisoning if anything along the way went wrong.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday April 22 2017, @11:12PM
Exactly. We don't control the input.
That almost seems nonsensical. How do you release the olive oil if you only ever exert a light amount of force? Perhaps you could explain that more.
That is extra shitty, I agree. However, the cold press part of it is valuable. The mechanics of it are solid, the problem is input. What if you hacked a bag and reused it? :)
You could then use your own produce and end up having a decent cold press system in your kitchen. Although, I'm not spending $400 to find out.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.