Again my team loses in the closing seconds. Clearly the gods of football want San Diego to move to a new city in 2009. I didn’t even watch, but when the score went to 21-3 in favor of Denver, my brother text messaged to say simply, “Pathetic.”
In other related news (news being losing), Starbucks is still getting a bad rap from all corners. The various reasons to hate starbucks include:
- Starbucks is a corporation, and all corporations are bad.
- Starbucks drives out small, independent cafes.
- Starbucks coffee is not shade grown, or as it is known, fair trade coffee.
Of course, the problems that any successful organization suffers are usually directly proportional to the value proposition offered by the competition. In other words, people hate starbucks (and find reason to hate them) simply because they are successful.
On point one above, any idiot with no more than three years of college has more than likely, been infected with social consciousness. It happens. As such, they tend to think that any corporation has done evil deeds (sold their soul to the devil) in order to become successful. Starbucks has made a number of concessions in its rise to the top. Among those concessions necessary to deliver a cheaper, more consistent cup of coffee, Starbucks has had to find cheaper sources for its product. Because they are one of the largest buyers in the world, clearly they have the ability to purchase in bulk, thereby necessitating a grower or distributor that can meet both demand and price considerations. This practice of course results in points two and three above.
Point two is true with a caveat. Starbucks does indeed tend to put small, family-owned cafes out of business. The reason isn’t because starbucks is hell bent on world domination (that is just a happy by product), but because small, family-owned cafes tend to be rather pricey for two reasons… their overhead is incredibly high and they cannot buy in bulk sizes that will result in cheaper coffee bean prices. Plainly put, small, family-owned cafes have to fuck your pocket book in order to exist. As an aside, I believe that smaller, family-owned cafes tend to breed the world’s largest fucktards as well as nurture elitism in all its various forms.
As to point three, there is no denying that Starbucks is puchasing coffee from growers that have clear cut forest in order to grow more coffee. While not optimal, coffee grown in large fields on deforested land is no better or worse than coffee grown in the shade. Some might try to say that the field grown beans require more work, and chemicals to produce than shade grown beans. This is true, but with a caveat. Shade grown beans are more expensive simply because of their rarity. The growers of such beans would like to keep it that way specifically because it allows them to charge more for product that is no better or worse than field grown coffee. When in doubt, follow motivation… in this case, why do smaller, shade grown coffee growers put such effort into demonizing Starbucks? Cause it prevents them from raping the consumer.
I like Starbucks. I like them because they make a decent cup of coffee, at a reasonable price, and they do it consistently accross every storefront. I know that if I enjoy the cup of coffee from the local starbucks in Kihei, I can be assured that I will like the cup of coffee in the starbucks in Poughkeepsie. There is comfort in consistency, AND THAT above all else is why I prefer coffee from starbucks over some gourmet, shade grown, over-priced coffee served by an elitist, cockslobbering, hatchet-faced douchebag with two nose rings and a fallout boy tee shirt.
I actually paid attention to that game at the very end. I didn’t understand the whole ‘was it a fumble or an incomplete pass?’ discussion but either way it was a pretty sad game.
I like Starbucks too. There really is comfort in consistency… and Starbucks has that for sure.
You got me hot in the last sentence!! Best blog post ever!
You make some great points E!, but I have to say I disagree, not that I hate Starbucks, I just liked my local coffee place in San Francisco(when I lived there 13 years ago)better and Starbucks put a store two store fronts down. The local place was gone within a year. Yes, perhaps the coffee was a bit more, but I liked the uniqueness of the place and the coffee was far better than Starbucks. I tend to not like chain stores of any kind, but I do defend their right to be.