GY- well, for starters, they've pretty effectively derailed this thread.

The cunning bastards.

Why is Nike blamed for all the evils in the world, while Reebok, Adidas and all the other companies who do roughly the same thing never get mentioned?

Are we all supposed to wear clunky ugly New Balance? (EIM to thread!)

Starbucks isn't actually so bad. I wish there weren't so damn many of them and the ambience inside is a bit grating, but at least they're "on the street" and they do the fair trade stuff and so forth. There are now more independent coffee shops around then there were pre-Starbucks. Starbucks essentially created the industry.

Wal-Mart is pretty nefarious. But they aren't a brand so much as a Devourer of Worlds.

Nike and Starbucks are lightning rods for hatred because they're highly visible, not because they're any worse.

Wal-Mart, however, is pure evil.

But for damaging brands, I'd vote Hummer for its normalizing effects on the culture of 'I'll drive a gas-guzzling vehicle because I can fucking afford to'. If I recall correctly, someone on the old board linked to an article about a kid in Liberal suburban New York who'd worked two jobs to buy his dream Hummer, only to have it repeatedly vandalized by his tweed-jacketed eco-neighbours. I felt bad for him...for a minute or two.

I hate Nike because they only make shoes for people with really thin feet. Plus they've royally, royally fucked up the England rugby shirt with their fuck awful cookie-cutter approach and that bastard Cornetto paint splash on the front.

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Starbucks essentially created the industry.

As good a reason to burn them as any. I don't know what's worse. The fact that they sell a cup of hot fucking water with some coffe in it for 3 quid, or the fact that an endless procession of wank-hammers actually pay it.

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I hate Nike because they only make shoes for people with really thin feet.

Fuck me, you must have hooves like manta-rays. I wear Nike a lot and I've got really fat feet, like the rest of me.

Before Starbucks, it was damn near impossible to find a decent cup of coffee in this country at any price.

It's still hard now, and a lot of people don't like Starbucks coffee either, but they've raised the standards by introducing the radical idea that coffee should taste good.

I've never managed to find a pair of Nike football boots that weren't cripplingly slim. My feet are normal.

It was then I decided they were bastards of the highest order and I started buying Lotto instead.

Could you not just, I don't know make a cup of coffee?

Starbucks' success, when delved into deeply, has little to do with its (good or bad) coffee. Primarily, it sells an excellent experience with a beverage being the souvenir you take away with you. The stores are generally clean and appealing, offering a seemingly luxurious experience for what it essentially pocket change. You get something tailored to you (short to grande, your type of milk, temperature, foam, etc, etc) and hand-made by someone trained to focus on you exclusively during the transaction. You can sit around, read, and enjoy a bit of cafe culture without being made to feel like you're loitering. And with rare exception (see Joe magazine), their supporting brand hoo-ha has clicked with their customer base. I'm talking about Starbucks cards, exclusive music, coffee makers, collectors' cups and whatnot. The downside, as mentioned above, is the legion of twats they've created who feel they can't speak properly until they've had their cup of double-tall bold African yadda yadda in the morning. A case of "I don't hate the band, I hate their fans" if ever there was one.

"Before Starbucks, it was damn near impossible to find a decent cup of coffee in this country at any price."

This absolutely, positively, does NOT apply to New York, where you could get a good cup of American coffee at any of the several hundred Greek diners for 60 cents (and often free refills).

And for someone who lives in Italy, Starbucks' "espresso" is undrinkable.

Starbucks have a branch at Guantanamo Bay, serving coffee to the captors. Fuck Starbucks.

I saw Seth Godin speak yesterday. He of the marketing books 'Purple Cow', 'Free Prize Inside', 'Unleashing the IdeaVirus', etc. One of the great new brands he talked about was Little MisMatched. They sell socks to little girls. The come in sets of three, beautifully coloured and completely mismatched. Little girls wear them to school, say "look at my socks" to other little girls, who in turn go home and bug mom until they get 'em. The company doubles in size every 9 months. Godin's point was that this is the way you need to think to have a truly groundbreaking company. Starting a company 'kinda like Starbucks, but more _________' won't do it.

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Starbucks have a branch at Guantanamo Bay, serving coffee to the captors.

Well, they're there serving US Military personnel. "Brave men and women fighting the war on terror", if you will. And there's also a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Wal-Mart, Subway, and a few others. Tough to parse capitalism, patriotism and politics in any meaningful way without getting yourself into deep shit with someone.

Starbucks espresso is deliberately over-roasted to being burnt to deliberately remove any identity from the coffee. It's hideous, but it creates a uniform basis for their various cafeinnated sugary desserts and is what they need for making light wavy vanilla half-moist caramel fraponettos or whatever they're alled.

Starbucks are bad, because they have reinforced the idea that burnt coffee is good, that burnt means strong (rather than actually meaning bitter and watery), they've created the impression that it actually costs £1.80 to make an espresso.

But much though I despise their coffee, I don't think they're particularly pernicious.

They're no worse for overcharging for an espresso than Porsche are for charging you $65,000 for a Cayanne that's nothing more than a $40,000 VW Tourag with a new nameplate. It's not about price or cost. It's about brand and experience.