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I think some of it also comes from a lower barrier to entry in many cases - the cost of supplying a small business (such as a coffee shop) has been lowered dramatically in recent years by technological advances in the supply chain, i.e. better tracking of coffee beans, more efficient delivery, etc.
[1] www.gastrograph.com
[2] JasonCEC [at] gastrograph [dot] com
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I believe that the growth in artisan firms is part of the trend towards affordable luxury goods, where individuals who find products that better match their preferences at nearly the same cost (not price^), become brand or product loyalists - they'll continue purchasing and consuming that product until it fails them (quality control) or their preferences change (which happens quite often, usually as a result of experience - we build flavor profiling tools to track and re-target these individuals).
^ example: the average craft beer may cost ~2x as much as Bud or Natural Light, but contains >2x alcohol by volume.
I think some of it also comes from a lower barrier to entry in many cases - the cost of supplying a small business (such as a coffee shop) has been lowered dramatically in recent years by technological advances in the supply chain, i.e. better tracking of coffee beans, more efficient delivery, etc.
I think it is this, precisely. And I think legislatively we should clear the way for small business by reducing the burden of regulation and oppressive bureaucracy.
I attribute the change to the influx and return of a strong middle class in cities. It's easier to create "mom and pop" shops when you have affluent buyers who live a block away. Suburban lifestyle meant your nearest supermarket became the obvious decision when the 5 mile drive was no shorter than a 45 minute drive. It will be interesting when services such as Postmates, Curbside, and Instacart evolve to extend these…
>return of a strong middle class in cities Where are these cities where a strong middle class has returned? Surely not in SF, where one of the area's highest paid professions (software engineer) cannot afford family housing? Certainly not elsewhere in California, where incomes among middle class Californian households fell by nearly 7% between 2009 and 2013, while income among the state’s top 20% earners grew by 1.3%…
Basically, anywhere with gentrification. The unaffordability of housing in city centers is a sign it's now "in" to live there. Businesses follow.
I do agree with you about how out of touch people on here are about North American economic reality.
A big problem trying a new product or restaurant is fearing a possible bad experience. With McDonald's you know what you're getting. It might not be great, but it's consistent. Rating systems and recommendations from peers help give confidence to consumers trying new things.
It's not that mass-production kills quality or "intangibles". We don't have to assume boutique products have a quality advantage. It's just that scale is most effective on price, and price sensitivity is not linear. Once products are cheap enough, price discrimination stops being decisive.
> The true-differentiation strategy seems to work best when scale, despite its efficiencies, also introduces blind spots in areas such as ... intangibles not entirely consistent with mass production and standardization.
That isn't really what's going on. Even if the big business is good, and scale is quite useful, there are many, many small competitors. All of the competitors are making products, and some of them are likely to be exceptional. So for the big business to stay on top, scale has to be helping a lot.
If there are 100 beers on the shelf, and one of them is a mass-produced, and the mass produced one is not #1 in quality, you don't have to assume mass-production hurts quality. It just that it didn't help enough.
If anyone is interested in a start-up[1] that works with beer, shoot me an email[2]! My company builds flavor profiling and quality control tools for craft beverage producers using machine learning, sensory science, and analytical chemistry. [1] www.gastrograph.com [2] JasonCEC [at] gastrograph [dot] com -------- edit / follow-up ------- I believe that the growth in artisan firms is part of the trend towards affordab…
I attribute the change to the influx and return of a strong middle class in cities. It's easier to create "mom and pop" shops when you have affluent buyers who live a block away. Suburban lifestyle meant your nearest supermarket became the obvious decision when the 5 mile drive was no shorter than a 45 minute drive. It will be interesting when services such as Postmates, Curbside, and Instacart evolve to extend these…
>return of a strong middle class in cities Where are these cities where a strong middle class has returned? Surely not in SF, where one of the area's highest paid professions (software engineer) cannot afford family housing? Certainly not elsewhere in California, where incomes among middle class Californian households fell by nearly 7% between 2009 and 2013, while income among the state’s top 20% earners grew by 1.3%…
When I was growing up in the suburbs of DC, not only would nobody middle class ever live there, you'd only ever go there to visit the monuments. Now, large swaths of the city are being redeveloped into areas for people who can afford to patronize mom & pop establishments.