"HiLine Coffee in NYC has been making both Nespresso and Keurig capsules for awhile now. Like another commenter stated, the patent on Nespresso capsules has expired, allowing 3rd party capsule makers to enter the market. Keurig has long allowed 3rd party capsules in its machines save for the short period of time where they tried using a DRM strategy. This is an interesting model and one that has obviously found an early adopter audience among pod users already based on hitting its Kickstarter goal. My guess is the pod format will stick around until its current consumer base moves on. I don't see younger generations keeping the format alive in the years to come. The concept of one-button, single serve coffee makes a lot of sense. But not while each serving is coming from a pod. "

"Trying to blame Beats for the proliferation of counterfeiting is the definition of hating just to hate. A quick google search for "counterfeit iPhone 6" turns up all kinds of results where the iPhone has been faked with remarkable accuracy. This is despite Apple investing many millions of dollars into manufacturing R&D - the directive of the sloppy engineer who wrote this tear down. This is a non-story. If the point is about counterfeiting rather than "adding weight" then it's a pretty shallow point. Whether you're Beats or Apple - like Mark said - if you're in the luxury goods market, people will attempt to counterfeit your product regardless of how much you invest in "designing ways to prevent your product from being counterfeit." As far as adding weight - this guy can claim it all he wants. But I still think you're giving Beats too much credit by saying corporate leadership or even the ID folks hatched a grand plan to fool consumers into thinking their product was of a higher quality by adding metal parts. Stop using disparaging stories about Beats as click bait. The company makes $600MM a year and was recently acquired by the most valuable company in the world for $3BB. Whatever they did, it worked. The hating is tiring.  "

"Sorry, but how does the fact that there are replicas made say anything about the consumer in this case? If the majority of people were running out and buying replica Beats products, you'd have a point. But in this case, the guy did the tear-down was the fool who purchased replicas. "

"This is probably the most accurate response in here. The metal parts are indeed the hinges of these headphones. Sure, they could have made them from injection molded plastic but they would have inevitably failed after prolonged use. My guess is that this was not a ruse on the designer's part, but a way preserve the integrity of the hinges. FWIW: People seem to think that at most successful companies, there are groups of people sitting around a table crafting strategies to deceive customers. Beats is especially susceptible to this perception. IMO, you're giving these corporations too much credit. In my experience, the truth is quite the opposite. "

"Right. So by that same logic, don't buy Nike shoes, Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton handbags, or pretty much anything else that might get knocked off."

"What I'm hearing: single serve coffee is eliminating water and electricity waste (I'd wager a coffee maker doesn't actually use that much electricity to begin with but hey, conserving is conserving). Pods are bad. Really, really bad. Go spend the coin on something like a Jura that will make your single cup of coffee but uses whole beans ground at the time of brewing. Less water, less electricity, no pods. A win win. Our studio uses the shit out of both the Juras we have and everyone is quite pleased.  "