Approaching this from the perspective of someone who drinks perhaps 250 mL of coffee per year, I am utterly mystified that the commodity coffee beverage product can still support so many niche businesses.<p>In this very discussion, I have seen people describe the way they make their own coffee, and it is almost identical to the way U.S.A.-C.S.A. civil war soldiers made theirs in camp. And I have seen people describe their heavily-modded robotic coffee makers, using consumables pre-processed in bulk by industrial-scale machinery to provide a more consistent product.<p>And this makes me think that Keurig is not just pissing into the wind, but directing their little stream against a waterfall. The coffee market is huge, and more ancient by far than most other product markets. It is also thoroughly commoditized. There is simply no way for any company to enjoy pricing power in it without an improbably vast cartel or some strictly policed patents and trademarks.<p>Why should the collective society of coffee-drinkers indulge Keurig's attempt to achieve economic profits (positive returns when considering opportunity cost) by allowing them to differentiate their sub-market to the point where they enjoy pricing power in it? Is their coffee that much better than all available alternatives? I have similar questions about Starbucks. How do they manage to charge more than the basic commodity price?<p>It almost seems as though the coffee itself is not the whole product, but it also includes the ritual and ceremony of preparing it. It also looks quite a bit like the market for wines and beers, where the price that the market will bear is determined mostly by the printing on the label.<p>Given those assumptions, my analysis is that Keurig is approaching their problem from the worst possible angle. Inserting technical countermeasures into the hardware will never work (as repeatedly demonstrated by pwn-your-own-device hackers). They should instead pour that cash into advertising and reward-based psychology. Institute some form of intermittent reward system for using genuine, trademark-branded consumables.<p>You cannot ever employ enough clever engineers to defeat the legion of people with physical possession of the item and a desire to make it do what its owner desires, instead of obeying its pre-programmed manufacturer directives. Annoying your customers simply does not add value to your product.