Overheard at Table 3: The Decline of Starbucks

https://hbr.org/2024/06/how-starbucks-devalued-its-own-brand?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

 

Very interesting article.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that it doesn't mention coffee, but further supports what I had noticed decades ago, which is that Starbucks does not really sell coffee, it sells an image - the image of "cool" & "hip" 

Starbucks was a Millennial place... and GenXers went there to feel like they were Millennials.  But now the Millennials have aged out and spend more time at home or at work (not in this "third place" as Schultz called Starbucks), and perhaps if Starbucks had originally focused more on good coffee at a good price, there might be something for it to cling to - a core commodity.

But instead, it focused on image (the article calls it "experience") and as the company made more money and strove for more profits, the experience suffered.

 

 

Overheard at Table 3: Why People Are Not Having Babies

So many scientists trying to figure out why birth rates are declining these days.  They keep thinking that it's lack of finding a suitable mate. I kinda disagree with that, because people throughout history have popped out kids with people they think are complete losers.

Then, they think maybe it's economics.  There might be some truth to that, I mean, babies are hella'expensive, and who wants to be spending one full paycheck on diapers when you could still be dropping it on concert tickets or weekends out nightclubbing, amirite?

What no one is saying is that it might be confusion.  I mean, seriously, who wants to create a human being who, in five six seven eight years, you're gonna have to go through trying to figure out if they're a boy or a girl and whether you should dump your entire life savings and paycheck into genderblockers or reassignment surgery?   'Cuz in this culture, if you DO then some Republican will report you to CPS for child abuse, but if you DON'T then the Liberals will shame you as an intolerant scumbag.

Or it might just be simple Existential Dread.  Everyone sees everything going to shit right now in the world and nothing's getting better.  In America this year the only choices for President is a dottering old fool and a rapist old xenophobic grifter.   Oh yeah ...and we had a third guy with a dead worm in his brain, don't forget that!

So yeah, if I were still of the age to be makin' babies, I'd sure be like, "No effin' WAY!"