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> Making the expiration date into a QR code that gets scanned and then sent to a server so it can be checked by a computer is a thing you can do, but you can al

> Making the expiration date into a QR code that gets scanned and then sent to a server so it can be checked by a computer is a thing you can do, but you can also just put it on the packaging, the way every other item in your pantry and fridge do. The expiration of these packets were measured in days or maybe a week, not weeks. Also, as I mentioned above in another comment, there could be particular product recalls like the current romaine lettuce recall. I'm not arguing that it wasn't overengineered, I'm just pointing out why they did it. I wouldn't have done it, but they chose to. > One of the reasons the price was high is that the machine was poorly designed and hideously over-engineered. It was totally overengineered. When my friend read the product breakdown from one of the blogs about how it was as if completely unexperienced mechanical engineers had designed the press, she said this wasn't too far off the mark. But the main reason for the failure wasn't the press, it was the food supply chain. That was way too intensive and expensive and wouldn't scale the way they wanted it to. They spent money on food scientists to make sure that the combination of vegetables they used wouldn't interact during the time that they were packaged together, etc. The people they were marketing to were pretty price-independent. $600 for a dumb press wasn't a big deal if they got a great green juice, which they did. Their phase to expand and lower the price was in the future, before they died because funding dried up. > Just like other failed companies, yes. The only companies to succeed after that level of strategic failure were the ones lucky enough to pivot. This wasn't a viable idea! Firstly, 90% of all startups fail. I never said it was a viable idea. I thought the idea wasn't good. But the investors took a chance. That's how it works. Even YC admits that the idea is less important than the people who are attempting the startup. The founder had fundamental experience with launching juice bars on the East Coast, and the idea to create a new market wasn't horrible. Investors took a chance, and then the management fucked it up. And yes, you can laugh at how dumb the idea is now, but the same goes for Soylent, or even the infamous Dropbox comment in HN. But at least their idea wasn't just "sell $600 juicers ad infinitum and make $$$$". That's my point. A lot of the article miss this. Juicero is just another failure like all other failures we see all the time in Silicon Valley. There are far worse examples of bad investments out there. I'm sure it's definitely in the bottom quartile of bad investments, but in my opinion it's not like it's the worst ever and doesn't deserve the level of humiliation associated with it. It was just a mismanaged idea that got bad press and then the Internet Lynch mob jumped on it.

sangnoir 8y ago
> there could be particular product recalls like the current romaine lettuce recall. I don't know if you can give this as an example in support of internet connectedness - we seem to be doing OK with the romaine lettuce issue without overpriced IoT salad bowls.
zaarn 8y ago
>The expiration of these packets were measured in days or maybe a week, not weeks. That isn't a particular hurdle. There are plenty of products in my local supermarket that have an expiration date measured in hours after purchase (usually about 3 or 4 days in total, the sticker is printed on-location, this especially concerns some raw meat products). >Also, as I mentioned above in another comment, there could be particular product recalls like the current romaine lettuce recall. That might require an internet connection but not permanent either. The juicer could simply have a blacklist of product IDs. Supermarkets also already implement this at the checkout. The cashier will be unable to add the item to the bill, even if a supervisor gets out their admin keys and tries it manually (the computer will even block same-price manual entries after a blocked item is scanned during checkout).

sangnoir 8y ago

> there could be particular product recalls like the current romaine lettuce recall. I don't know if you can give this as an example in support of internet connectedness - we seem to be doing OK with the romaine lettuce issue without overpriced IoT salad bowls.

zaarn 8y ago

>The expiration of these packets were measured in days or maybe a week, not weeks. That isn't a particular hurdle. There are plenty of products in my local supermarket that have an expiration date measured in hours after purchase (usually about 3 or 4 days in total, the sticker is printed on-location, this especially concerns some raw meat products). >Also, as I mentioned above in another comment, there could be particular product recalls like the current romaine lettuce recall. That might require an internet connection but not permanent either. The juicer could simply have a blacklist of product IDs. Supermarkets also already implement this at the checkout. The cashier will be unable to add the item to the bill, even if a supervisor gets out their admin keys and tries it manually (the computer will even block same-price manual entries after a blocked item is scanned during checkout).