Turns Out, Starbucks Is Not Evil
I’ve already blogged my opinions on coffee retailers. While I am not a crazed fan of the overpriced, made-to-order coffee that Starbucks offers, I was surprised to hear that the coffee giant is planning to close 600 under-performing locations nationwide. I don’t really care one way or another, it doesn’t bother me one bit that there are 3 Starbucks locations within a 10 block radius of my apartment. I could understand that in a weakening economy, many people across the nation are trying to cut down on a $100 a month or more coffee-drinking habit.
I was reading some responses to the Starbucks closings online at ireprot.com, and it seemed more often than not people were happy about this. One person commented “It’s about time. Their coffee tastes like charcoal.” Another person said “I already spend $4 a gallon on gas. Why would I spend another $4 for a 12oz coffee?” Point taken.
However, along with these Starbucks closings come thousands of store managers and baristas out of jobs. Empty buildings with landlords losing rent. Coffee machine manufacturers and paper-goods manufacturers losing income. Clearly there is not going to be a good economical after-effect of all the closings. So, all the people out there that think corporate Starbucks is evil, well, they were actually stimulating the economy. Wow look at me now defending them!
August 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The thing that made Starbucks evil was that, in a good economy where there was room for a coffee place on every corner, they monopolized all of those corners and chased out the competition. But agreed that in a market where a closing Starbucks will be replaced by nothing, and not another coffee place, there’s nothing good about that.