
Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze - jatsign
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-valley-s-400-juicer-may-be-feeling-the-squeeze?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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johnvonneumann
"He said he spent about three years building a dozen prototypes before
devising Juicero’s patent-pending press. In an interview with technology
website Recode, he likened his work to the invention of a mainstream personal
computer by Apple’s Jobs. “There are 400 custom parts in here,” Evans told
Recode. “There’s a scanner; there’s a microprocessor; there’s a wireless chip,
wireless antenna.”

Honestly, this right here, is probably indicative of a lot if true. Nothing
says "effective engineering culture" like custom building parts for your
innovative-unicorn-10x-juicer when you can get cloned Arduino parts from
China. Wankery of the highest order.

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rcarrigan87
I was under the impression the jury was still out on the overall health
benefits of juicing in general. Doesn't the removal of all the fiber make
drinking the juice a lot less beneficial than actually eating the fruits and
veggies themselves?

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goldenkey
Juicing can actually cause liver and kidney damage due to absurdly high
amounts of oxalates and other minerals that normally wouldn't be possible to
get if you actually ate the original produce. In addition, juices tend to do
more damage to tooth enamel despite the lack of chewing, surprisingly.

Be careful with juicing. Strong pigments, bitter tastes are warning signs for
heavy hitters on the liver and kidneys.

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soloadventurer
I cannot upvote you enough. Juicing gives you the ability to easily consume a
cup of flavored sugar water. Now throw in all the "healthy" raw kale and
spinach and some seeds, and you end up with a concoction that is high in
sugar, high in fructose, high on phytates, and high in oxalates.

There are reasons why our ancestors soaked, fermented, and sprouted various
vegetation--to reduce the toxicity associated with consuming it raw and
untreated.

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LostWanderer
Such a bad design flaw,How come the intelligent investors pushed for this
device? What are some of the red flags that one should keep in mind to avoid
such issues?

Sometimes I cannot fathom the depth of laziness we have gone into,But hey..
Laziness has been the driving force for the evolution of humans

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SwellJoe
It reminds me of the episodes of Silicon Valley where the new CEO pushed
really hard for a physical box and a licensing deal to deploy the box. There's
one quote in the article that makes me think the actual tech here is the
"organic fruit delivered to your home" (though I'm not sure how that's
revolutionary or even novel, either), and the squeezer is a dongle they stuck
on there, I guess to make it more obviously a luxury product? I'm not really
sure.

To me, it just reeks of a classic Internet of Shit kind of model, where tech
is imposed on a product not because it makes the product better, but because
it makes the product more expensive and exclusive.

I mean, Keurig has had a ridiculously successful run doing the same basic
thing: Stick a low cost commodity product into a pricey DRM-protected package
and sell expensive devices to extract the commodity product from said
packaging. Coffee makers have never been hard to use, and yet, somehow Keurig
sells billions of K-cups. So...maybe these folks figured they'd reproduce that
model, and maybe their investors believed they could do so.

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mpeg
Except in HBO's Silicon Valley, the box (or more broadly the appliance model)
was probably the right choice.

A compression product like that would be a much easier sell to enterprise if
it's on-premise than as a cloud service.

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Dowwie
I love juicing but it requires substantial effort.

Juicing took me 20-30 minutes a day and so was unsustainable for my lifestyle.
I probably went overboard with the ingredients and may have been exceeded
vitamin intake requirements, though. Veggies and fruits had to be washed and
cut. Parts had to be cleaned after each use. I use an auger-based omega
juicer. I'd listen to a podcast to make the most of my time in the kitchen.

If I were to innovate in the juicing category, I'd begin with a produce
washing machine + dryer. I don't know about you but where I buy my produce, it
doesn't come cleaned and cut (Emeril reference).

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Walf
If you thought Juicero was a good idea, you may be a wanker.

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Black-Plaid
It's not a bluddy juicer, it's just a dispenser.

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pebcakID10T
This is one case where the juice was not worth the squeeze.

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retrac98
What a joke.

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justforFranz
Yay for frothy investments!

