1) Starbucks is a more American thing than a worldwide one. 2) Starbucks is many things, but coffee store is a euphemism. It offers sweetened hot drinks with c

1) Starbucks is a more American thing than a worldwide one. 2) Starbucks is many things, but coffee store is a euphemism. It offers sweetened hot drinks with caffeine. (See where that taste difference I mentioned comes in?) 3) Craft coffee shops don't elevate coffee. They elevate pomp and circumstance around coffee. (Again, not that there's anything wrong with that, but not everybody wants that. Taste, again) You seem to operate under the misguided belief that taste has global maxima. It does not. It does have limited audiences, which is why normed mediocrity wins out on the large scale - it aims at the fact that most consumers follow a satisficing strategy. But that also means that the market will not continue to improve, it will aim to satisfy a maximal market and minimal cost, and then it will peter out. There is no "elevating even more", unless the desires of almost the entire world change significantly.