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When Starbucks announced that it would phase out its mobile-order pickup-only locations beginning in 2026, it raised a question: Why abandon a format seemingly built for speed and efficiency? As Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol explained in an earnings call, the pickup-only stores have a transactional feel, lacking the warmth and human connection that defines our brand. While Niccol also touted the mobile-order options at its traditional coffee shops, I see Starbuckss move as an attempt to return to its roots as a third placea destination between home and work where people can gather and connect. But this sort of pivot comes with trade-offs, and it creates interesting market opportunities for competitors. As a marketing professor and a coffee connoisseur, Im offering this analysis to go with your morning cup of joe. The two types of coffee shop patrons In general, coffee shops attract two distinct customer segments. The first are what I call stay-and-savor customerspeople who mostly use the site as a place to meet others or work. Their primary interest is in the space, not the mocha or muffins. The second are grab-and-go customerspeople who want a consistent product, delivered efficiently. They dont linger at the store, so the place is less important to them than convenience, speed, and product quality. Think of the morning rush at your local coffee joint. Starbuckss pickup-only stores, branded as Starbucks PICK UP, cater to grab-and-go customers. If you dont live in a busy area, you might never have heard of the brand: There are fewer than 100 Starbucks PICK UPs, many in densely packed cities. In contrast, there are about 17,000 sit-in Starbucks stores across the United States. That means the companys plan will affect just 0.5% of its locations. Thats not very much. So why does this change have me a little, well, steamed up? Back to the third place, whether you like it or not As I said before, I see this move as part of an effort to emphasize stay-and-savor customers over their grab-and-go counterparts. Indeed, Niccols recent earnings call presentation claimed that Starbucks is prioritizing warmth, connection, and community. Starbucks also published a document stating its principles for upholding the third place, and its commitment seems to be more than just rhetorical. The problem is that coffee shops arent like regular restaurants in terms of menu prices and customer spending. Stay-and-savor customers are costly to serve for coffee shops, and may generate insufficient revenue, making them less profitable. That could be bad for the bottom line. The change could also have unintended consequences for workers and customers. For example, pickup-only stores allow employees to focus on food and beverage preparation, with less pressure to engage in small talk in the hopes of generating warmth and tips. Indeed, much academic research has shown that restaurant workers who serve customers report more emotional labor and stress and worse morale and well-being than those who dont. In contrast, Starbucks rivals such as Dunkin and the Chinese new entrant Luckin Coffee have embraced the grab-and-go customers. These rivals provide space for seating, but they dont elevate their positioning as if their baristas are serving warmth, connection, and community. Starbucks CEO Niccol has described the plan as a sunsetting. Id watch out for Dunkin and Luckin Coffee and, of course, Starbuckss financials in 2026, to determine whether the Starbucks sun sets or rises. Vivek Astvansh is an associate professor of quantitative marketing and analytics at McGill University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Weve all heard it: For decades, its been a crux of career advice. Keep every door open. Stay on good terms. Never fully walk away. Dont burn that bridge. But that advice was followed during a different time and for workplaces that were designed to keep you in line, not further your career. In todays fast-moving workforce, clinging to outdated relationships, toxic workplaces, or unfair structures isnt loyalty. Its self-sabotaging. Its time to rethink what was once considered the norm. Sometimes burning a bridge isnt reckless. Its strategic. Its the first step toward building something better in your career. Why Dont Burn Bridges No Longer Works The original phrase came from the military: destroy the bridge behind you so you cant retreat. In modern work life, its been turned into never cut ties, even if those ties are choking your growth. The reason for this advice? To protect the system, not you. To make sure you dont disrupt the corporate hierarchy, question what was once considered normal, or hold higher powers accountable. But when youre trauma-bonded to bad bosses, toxic workplaces and colleagues, or exploitative industries, staying connected keeps you stuck. It prevents advancement. It robs you of the energy you need to move forward. Lets be clear: walking away is complicated. Here are five ways to burn bridges and do it in a way thats bold, healthy, and future-career focused: 1. Walk away, with both feet. If youre constantly keeping one foot in the past and one in the present, youll never fully be able to march toward your future. When you make the decision to break free from a place or a person holding you back, you must commit to the ending. Any ambivalence will send mixed messages to what you no longer want in your life and to yourself. Stop meeting your former toxic boss for coffee. Dont like and comment on posts by the person who mistreated you. Block the number in your phone that sends a shiver down your spine every time you see it pop up. Cut the cord. 2. Stand for your boundaries. Create, communicate, and comply with the boundaries that you need and require that those who you allow in your life do the same. Writer, broadcaster, and podcaster Emma Gannon is known for saying, The only people who get upset when you start setting boundaries are the ones who benefited from you not having them. You will be met with resistance because you are no longer allowing others to mistreat you. Dont take that pushback as a sign to retreat. Its working. This is what it looks like. Decide where you will spend your time and energy and who with. Is the monthly networking dinner you signed up for still serving you? What about the subscription to the organization that no longer feels aligned? Its time to stop feeding the people and places that no longer support the life youre designing. Cancel whats not adding value. 3. Protect yourself. Who is the version inside of you who wasntor isntsafe? Now, go to them and tell them that you know a way out. Lead them there, hand in hand, and dont stop until you get to the other side. So much of growth is about knowing better and then, doing better. You now have the power to rewrite your story. Make sure youre the main character in this edition. Do you remember what it felt like to be in the midst of your career chaos? Its time to hold that emotion again and release it. Write a letter to that version of yourself acknowledging, honoring, and validating the experience. Tell them what youre doing differently now so that it will never happen again. So much of healing and moving forward is dependent upon witnessing what was. And getting those feelings out of your body onto paper is a powerful tool in the process. 4. Build your own bridge. We spend a lot of time running to the next thing. Preparing for the next challenge. Rushing to achieve the next milestone. Its a perfect recipe for never enjoying anything youve worked for. Stop. Look around. This was your goal at one point in time. And even if its not exactly the way you want it to be, you have achieved so much. Stand at the peak of your in-between. Look to the left at whereand whoyouve been. Look to the right at where youre going, at who youre meant to be. Thank them, the you of this moment. They deserve to be celebrated. Share what youre doing with people you trust. Yes, they can hold you accountable, but they will also be there to celebrate these important steps youre taking: burning the bridges to a past that no longer serves you; building a bridge to a future that is ready to fulfill you. You cant do it alone. Surround yourself with the people who want to see you win. 5. Walk to the other side. Your new bridge is built. The decaying and diseased bridges are burned. All the planning and strategizing and vision boarding in the world means nothing unless you take action. Rewiring the conditioning inside of you that tells you dont burn bridges takes effort, determination, and commitment. But the act of making a different choiceof reprogramming an operating system that at one point brought you safety, success, and solacetakes conviction. You must commit to this shift and start changing your daily habits if you want to realize this new life for yourself. No one else will do it for you. It is up to you. This is our way forward: New system. New rules. New path. Lets stop asking others for directions to places theyve never been. Lets stop taking directions from others to places theyll never go. Lets build our own bridges. On our own terms. Ive gone back too many timesto people and places in my career that have burned me; Ive put my hand into the fire again and again thinking that maybe, this time, it wont be so hot. Ive slipped back while climbing my way out of quicksand because giving in felt so much easier. I even taught myself that it actually felt good. When we always keep one foot behind, wedged inside this mythical door that must remain open indefinitely, we never fully move forward. Its time. Close the door. Walk away. Burn the bridge. Build a new bridge. Cross it. Burning bridges isnt self-destructive. Its an act of self-preservation. And you will always be worth saving.
Category:
E-Commerce
Martin Luther King, Jr., did plenty to change the world for the better. And nearly 60 years after his assassination, hes at the center of a major concession by the worlds leading AI company that puts a battle over intellectual property and the right to control your image into the spotlight. In the weeks after OpenAI released Sora 2, its video generation model, onto the world, Kings image has been used in a number of ways that his family have deemed disrespectful to the civil rights campaigners legacy. In one video, created by Sora, King runs down the steps of the site of his famous I have a dream speech, saying he no longer has a dream, he has a nightmare. In another video, which resembles the footage of Kings most famous speech, the AI-generated version of the civil-rights campaigner has been repurposed to quote Tygas Rack City, saying Ten, ten, ten, twenties on your titties, bitch. In another, which Fast Company is not linking to, King makes monkey noises while reciting the same famous speech. I can’t say how shocking this is, says Joanna Bryson, a professor of AI ethics at the Hertie School in Berlin. Bryson, a British citizen since 2007 but born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says that the videos featuring the civil-rights campaigner were particularly distasteful because of his role in historical events. I was born in the 1960s so any kind of atrocity against his memory is incredibly distressing, she says. But also, his family is famously excellent and activist in protecting his legacy. That activist intervention has resulted in OpenAI rethinking its approach to how people are depicted in Sora. Sort of. King was far from the only dead individual whose image was recreated and resuscitated with the help of Sora, as Fast Company has previously reported. While the King Estate has managed to secure something of a climbdown from OpenAI in one formthe AI firm said on Oct. 16 it believes public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used– the concession is only a partial one. The public statement continues: Authorized representatives or estate owners can request that their likeness not be used in Sora cameos. This is an embarrassing climb down for a company that just two weeks ago launched a deepfake app that would generate realistic videos of pretty much anyone you liked, says Ed Newton-Rex, a former AI executive-turned-copyright campaigner and founder of Fairly Trained, a non-profit certifying companies that respect creators rights. But removing one persons likeness doesnt go nearly far enough. No one should have to tell OpenAI if they dont want themselves or their families to be deepfaked. An opt-out regime for public figures to not have their images usedsome would argue abusedby generative AI tools is a far cry from the norms that have protected celebrities or intellectual property owners in the past. And its an onerous requirement on individuals as much as corporations to try and fight fires. (Separately, Fast Company has reported that OpenAIs enforcement of registering Sora accounts in the names of public figures has been patchy at best.) Indeed, the huge imposition that such an opt-out regime would have on anyone has been appealed at governmental levels. Following Sora 2s release, the Japanese government has petitioned OpenAI to stop infringing on the intellectual property of Japanese citizens and companies. In this instance, it goes beyond IP alone. This is less of an IP issue and more of a self-sovereignty issue, says Nana Nwachukwu, a researcher at the AI Accountability Lab at Trinity College Dublin. I can look at IP as tied to digital sovereignty in these times so that makes it a bit complex. My face, mannerisms and voice are not public data even ifbig ifI become a viral figure tomorrow. Theyre the essence of my identity. Opt-out policies, however intentioned, are often misguided and dangerous, she says. We simply can’t ask every historic figure to rely on this kind of body to opt out of sordid depictions, says Bryson. It would make more sense to demand some lower bounds of dignity in the depiction of any recognizable figure. Says Newton-Rex: Its really very simpleOpenAI should be getting permission before letting their users make deepfakes of people. Anything else is incredibly irresponsible. Newton-Rex has long been a critic of the way that AI companies approach copyright and intellectual property. OpenAI has defended its partial stand down by saying there are strong free speech interests in depicting historical figures. A spokesperson for the company told The Washington Post this week: We believe that public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used. Bryson believes that some sort of AI-specific approach to how living figures are depicted through these tools is needed, in part because of the speed at which videos can be produced, the low barrier to entry to doing so, and the low cost at which those outputs can be disseminated at speed. We probably do need a new rule, and it will unfortunately only depend on the brand of the AI developer, she says. I say unfortunately because I don’t expect the monopoly presently enforced by compute and data costs to hold, she adds. I think there will be more, less expensive, and more geographically diverse DeepSeek moments [in video generation]. Experts suggest that the world shouldnt necessarily celebrate the King climbdown as a major moment, in part because it still tries to shift the window of acceptability over intellectual property and recognizable individuals further than it stood before Sora was unleashed on the world. And even then, there may still be workarounds: Three hours after OpenAI published its statement in conjunction with the King Estate, an X user shared another video of the iconic figure. In this one, at least, Kings words werent too twisted. But the fact it could be made at all was. I have a dream, the AI character said to applause, where Sora changes its content violation policy.
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E-Commerce
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