[anigbrowl]

Yeah, but who the fuck cares? Ultimately it's an infusion made from roasted beans. I made my own coffee for years and was perfectly happy with the simple french press method. No doubt a skilled barista would do far better, just as a skilled chef cooks better than I do. But the gourmet market isn't big enough to drive the rest of the economy. We are not headed fora future where people have amazing jobs as amazing baristas and then go to be gourmet consumers of something else when they quit work, such that everyone is simultaneously an employee and an epicurean. For a tiny few, being a barista may approach the heights of being a sommelier in a top-rated French restaurant, but for the majority they'll be slinging coffee, just as most people who serve wine in a restaurant are just waiters, and none of these people will enjoy the fabulous life when their shift ends, just some discounts (official or otherwise) on the same product they serve to the customers.

[throwawaykeno]

Sorry, I wasn't implying that anyone cares. I even state a few times in this thread that people specifically don't care in aggregate. And even if people did care, it wouldn't have a major impact on the extent to which barista jobs are automated.

But it is just interesting, from a technical/hacker perspective, that good barista work is a pretty hard robotics problem!