TFA's scary scenario assumes a number of things that just aren't, and empirically won't be, true. In no industry, ever, has an inventor with however many paten

TFA's scary scenario assumes a number of things that just aren't, and empirically won't be, true. In no industry, ever, has an inventor with however many patents succeeded in permanently keeping substitutions away for more than a very short period of time. You mention cartridges with brings to mind famously uncompetitive coffee and printer toner parallels. Yet, there is a rich market for third party toner cartridges that the incumbents has totally failed to shut down, and there's a rich market for different brands of printers, which even in the face of uncompetitive cartridges caps the price any one manufacturer can charge. Despite the popularity of printers, HP is NOT a healthy company. Pretty much the same thing is true for the capsule-coffee-market. There are a ton of different kinds of cartridge/pad/pod/foo systems, and again, it's trivial to find third-party capsules. On top of that, the capsule-coffee-market is under pressure from the non-capsule coffee market: If you feel ripped off by capsules, you have a good number of options to brew beans direct. The same thing will happen with the magic food machine - people will just cook regular meals. Sure, the 5 star restaurant experience might be hurt , and that's a real shame, but it's not like a silicon valley whizkid can just charge $INF because otherwise humanity starves.