Godspeed, you horrific, beautiful dumpster fire.
Ah, Juicero. Yet another stupid internet enabled device that overcomlicated a simple thing. I mean, shit, my editor has a juicer from the 70’s that not only still works, it lets you juice whatever you want. Juicero couldn’t do that; its sole purpose is to squeeze bags filled with juice (in a manner similar to Keurig’s K-Cups). There’s almost nothing it’s good for without those bags, whose production is soon to be shut down. You know, those bags that you could squeeze the juice out of by hand. Like some sort of cave man. And those bags were a $40 a week subscription.
This stupid, stupid machine had no buttons; the only way to operate it was by smartphone, and it needed to be connected to the internet (so that it could check databases for the bag code to see if it was spoiled/recalled/etc.) just to work. And it initially cost $699. And the kicker? That wasn’t enough to recoup losses! The goddamn things are so gloriously over-engineered that each unit probably cost almost $2000 to build. And they slashed prices to $400; which still wasn’t enough to entice people. It’s no surprise that Doug Evans is known for this, and Organic Avenue, a failed chain of cold-pressed juice bars. He strikes me as the type that can spin gold into shit. Google’s venture capital arm pumped $120 million into this mess. It’s all kind of hilarious.
This guy is a hoot.
They were so desperate to get people to adopt this waste of space, they had plans for a stripped down $200 version. Which, naturally, won’t come to pass. So, when you see the things sitting out on the curb, pick ’em up. Those beautiful, beautiful Juicero parts are good for something; it’s just not pressing juice. Actually, I take that back, you could probably cobble together a more efficient juicer with half the parts. I’m just wondering how iDubbbz missed this thing.
The company is offering 90 days for consumers to get a refund. I wouldn’t recommend it though; if you sold the thing for scrap, you’d get more than you paid for it. And while it’s sad to see that people are going to lose their Juicero jobs, I wouldn’t worry. Silicon Valley is filled with brands waiting to snap them up. Hell, there’ll probably be another dumbass organic vegan hipster machine in need of a team any minute now.
~F~
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