[lbsnake7]

This is somewhat false. McDonalds amassed all of this real estate during the normal course of doing its main business. It would be like saying Walmart is in the shelf business because they have a lot of shelves. If amassing large amounts of real estate is the end goal, selling burgers for 50 years is probably not the best way to do it. I think McDonalds fears that if it spins off its real estate holdings, those properties will have no loyalty to McDonalds and could become a Starbucks or whatever. The value that McDonalds provides is that it is everywhere and at low prices. If it isn't everywhere, then it can't provide low prices and the whole thing crumbles.

[yodon]

When Starbucks went public, they explicitly told the investment community "don't invest in us because of coffee, invest in us because of real estate, we are a real estate company that happens to sell coffee"

[fuckemem]

Perhaps that explains why their coffee tastes awful.

[arkades]

Their coffee tastes awful for the same reason that McD's makes awful food: it's optimized for standardization/consistency.

Starbucks roasts all their coffee to relatively exorbitant degrees to cover up the inconsistency brought about by their very-multi-origin sourcing.

Some Starbucks locations sell "single origin" coffee which tastes quite a bit better, if only because they don't have to hide the variance in taste and can afford not to roast it to hell.

[omegaham]

That consistency is worth a lot.

I can grab a coffee and sit down with my laptop in Portland, Boston, or Yuma, and I will have the exact same mediocre experience. I don't care about having a transcendent coffee journey; I care about getting a predictable cup of coffee, a kinda-comfortable space, and wifi to check my email. That's it.

I can hunt for some coffeeshop that might be great or might be awful, or I can head into the local Starbucks and know exactly what I'm going to get.

[dvtv75]

So, instead of taking the 50/50 chance of something being great, you'll accept downright poor instead.

I'm not actually poking fun of you, one of my friends has the same attitude - something that I just can't understand. I'd rather try and find something that was decent than something that's not.

[fuckemem]

Sounds like for the OP the coffee isn't the product, but rather a space to work and think.

Having to choose a coffee show, see if they have wifi, charging, not to noisy etc. is an inconvenience if you want to just get started on something quickly. You might only have an hour before a meeting if you are travelling for example.

[fuckemem]

That is interesting. Thanks.

So it takes some effort to make it taste that bad. Keep up the good work SB!

[djrogers]

You're missing the point - they make most of their profit from rent, not burgers.