Prepare for more SCs

[wolfie]

Do you work for a place that sells K-cups of coffee NOT licensed by Keurig? Now that the patent has expired, Keurig is working on a way to keep people from using unlicensed pods. I'm sure you can imagine the suck that will result when people buy K-cups at your place of employment, find they don't work in their brand-new coffee maker, and try to return them. After all, it IS the fault of the near-minimum-wage worker at the place they bought the coffee. [/sarcasm].

Note: Let's keep this to the "is", namely "this will probably result in a lot of angry customers". Anything along the lines of "should this be allowed", you know where to take it.

[fma_fanatic]

So it's Lexmark all over again, only with K-Cups. Nice. I'll be interested to see how that works out.

Meanwhile, sales of older Keurig machines will skyrocket as people refuse to pay higher prices for K-Cups. Or better yet, once they do try to do the chip thing (which will be interesting since it'll probably be expensive as hell), the price of K-Cups will double.

I think if there's enough backlash, Keurig will rethink this move.

[mjr]

Or better yet, once they do try to do the chip thing (which will be interesting since it'll probably be expensive as hell), the price of K-Cups will double.

I'm not sure about the price doubling. If they go with near-field RF, they might be able to get away with raising the price by a very small amount. Of course, that would jack up the price of the machine by a good deal, but not necessarily the K-cups themselves.

[LillFilly]

I know that there are K kups and V cups for the Keurig. The low-end Keurig models work with the generic re-fillable cups that you can put your own coffee in. The higher-end models don't, and neither do the V cup models. The generic cups usually say what machines/models they work in. Buyer beware I guess.

[Dreamstalker]

I have seen refillable cups for the Vue. We had a B70 for ages; it was free for helping out with a market study about K-cups back when they first became popular. Finally (after about 7 years) the water line developed a fault that would mean taking apart the entire thing to find and fix it for good. Mom didn't think it was worth it (decent risk of it not working at all afterwards) so we got a new one.

I also have one of the Mini brewers that I had in my apartment; that doesn't take our reusable cup but might accept the smaller filter-basket-only ones I have someplace.

[Kittish]

I really hope the whole DRM coffee pods thing dies. It's rather transparently a money grab.

We have two of the refillable pods for my boyfriend to take to work with him, since he does want a cup of coffee about halfway through his shift and one of his coworkers brought in her own pod brewer (no idea what brand or model it is). Aside from that, I refuse to purchase coffee pods, we're on a rather snug budget and I really cannot justify the per unit cost as it is.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Aside from that, I refuse to purchase coffee pods, we're on a rather snug budget and I really cannot justify the per unit cost as it is.

That's the main reason why I've not bought a k-cup machine. I can go through about half a pot of coffee every morning (and I'll usually fill up my thermal cup on my way out the door to hold me until I can get to work, where we have a coffee maker usually already with a fresh pot made) so really when you add it up, a 12 pack of pods is around 7-10 dollars (depending on brand) so one box theoretically wouldn't last me more than 2 days!!!

And that adds up too quick for my brain tonight to even count how much that would cost every 2 weeks, so it's simply cheaper for me to buy regular coffee (and that can sometimes get expensive but I look for what's on sale vs. what I have a taste for) as I can spend around $5-7 dollars every month for a 12 oz bag (one bag will last me around a month or a little more.)

[Ironclad Alibi]

Looking at the issue from a patent viewpoint, since Keurig is redesigning their system to use different K-cups, they could design a new K-cup that could be patented and get another 20 years (in the US) exclusive product use. The drug companies do this all the time.

[LillFilly]

I know that if you drink a lot of coffee the K-kups could get expensive, but I used to brew a pot of coffee and waste half of it, where now I get a perfect cup that I can finish. That was before I got a french press, but if I'm running out the door int he morning, I don't have time to wait for water to boil. I mostly use the Keurig because one of my work perks is free K-kups, so free coffee!