Open Coffee, Closed Coffee

I was in the supermarket today with a developer friend of mine. I wanted to buy coffee capsules for the coffee machine I currently have at home.

Usually, I go with the standard brand capsules. However, this time I noticed there are other brands of coffee, some of them have their own machines, others are only coffee brands.

I told my friend how angry I am at Nestle, because they built a closed coffee platform, you have to buy their coffee to be compatible with their machines. He told me I am wrong and showed me some coffee brands that are compatible with Nespresso or the machine I have at home. I was a bit surprised.

It is funny we techies always compare platforms from their openness/closeness. From the Windows vs Linux days, to nowadays which VR platform will be more open, which will be more closed and the benefits of each.

I now imagine someone in the coffee world is comparing different coffee ecosystems, which machines are compatible with each type of capsules, which company is more open, and when coffee makers have to adapt their product to fit the new versions of the the platforms, or in that case new models of coffee machines.

How do you like your coffee? Open? Closed?