Threatening people is unwarranted, but of course people are allowed to choose where they buy coffee for whatever reasons they see fit. If the market decides that stores with AI posters aren't the place to be then the business has to adapt.

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garyfirestorm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

i generally go to the store where the coffee tastes better

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seattle_spring an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Using AI to make a sign is likely a pretty good indicator as to the effort the owner puts into other aspects of their business.

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orangedog an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It only signals to me that they have other priorities.

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Draiken an hour ago | parent [-]

Correct, but they own a coffee shop, they aren't building rockets. The menu is definitely a significant part of it.

If they can barely do that, then I'm sure they're slacking off on more stuff too.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The menu is definitely a significant part of it

The overlap in skills between photographing your product and being a great barrista aren't obviously overlapping.

The takeaway seems to be to remove images from the menu.

	▲	asdff 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You think this is a signal of some great barista?

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orangedog an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It was just a replacement for those temporary chalkboard menus, the person wo did that previously left. Perhaps she has bad taste but that doesn't mean she was slacking off. Did they spend a lot of time on the chalkboard menus previously?

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ssl-3 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Just printing this item was reported in the article as costing $150.

How much might it cost to have someone local show up and produce a decent-looking chalkboard display?

	▲	skupig 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This is what people are actually mad about when businesses use AI art. You claim to live in an artistic community, great, ask your staff if they have any friends who draw who want to come by and make a quick $100. You spent more money on a worse result that alienates your community.

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Draiken 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Honestly, I'd rather have a word printed doc for the menu than this. It's not that difficult, doesn't require any skills and doesn't take any time.

IDK, you own a business and do this sort of stuff and all sorts of red flags go off for me.

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marssaxman an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seems to me it's an indicator that the owner cares more about making and serving food or drink than they do about advertising it. I'd feel differently if some big corporate chain were doing this, but if it's a little "mom & pop"/"hole in the wall" type place, cheap advertising is a neutral-to-positive signal.

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sega_sai an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unless they use the time they previously spent making a sign into making a better coffee.

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jrflowers an hour ago | parent [-]

How would a coffee shop spend an hour making their coffee better

Like you own a coffee shop and you’ve freed up one hour in the 12 weeks before you have to make a new sign, what do you do in that hour that makes the coffee better?

	▲	sippingabonedry an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Spending the money you would have wasted on a flaky local artist to draw an overpriced disposable sandwich board on better coffee beans. The entitlement is off the charts. The more I read this insanity, the more I hope she printed it at Walmart with a discount coupon.

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fragmede an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. It's a sign they spend a lot of effort making good coffee and don't have a lot of effort left over to work on a sign.

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asdff 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Somehow I don't think that's the tradeoff being made

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squidsoup an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The environment the coffee is served in is a significant part of the business.

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krapp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

They own the business, they don't make the coffee, nor did they make the sign they had earlier.

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nrmitchi an hour ago | parent [-]

> They own the business, they don't make the coffee

You might not have spent a lot of time in the world of "small business", but this is hysterically out of touch.

	▲	krapp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The article literally mentions that they have baristas, one of whom was making the old menu because they were "aesthetically inclined." This can also be confirmed by looking at the employment section of their website. The owner was not personally either making or serving the coffee.

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an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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Freedom2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Agreed. That's actually what OP said as well.

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ratelimitsteve 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the only "threat" mentioned in the article is that someone said that if she didn't take the sign down they would post about it in a local artist community. Threatening people with violence is always unwarranted, but trying to portray talking with other people about what someone is doing as a "threat" is disingenuous.

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brandon272 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think that issuing an ultimatum where if the person does not do what you want, that you will be sharing your concerns with likeminded people online, with the underlying implication being that the business owner will end up experiencing some kind of negative outcome from that, is absolutely a threat.

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mothzilla an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly. Pure cancel culture. Just be humble to understand the world might not agree with your views and let it be. Less "this can't exist" and more of "this is not for me".

	▲	jlarocco an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Cancel culture or not, people are allowed to tell other people they know that something is happening, and those people can decide for themselves to patronize the business or not. To call it a threat is really exaggerating. The headline makes it sound like people are phoning in bomb threats and violence, which doesn't seem to be happening at all. Honestly, I think the business owner should have ignored these weak "threats" altogether. It doesn't have anything to do with coffee and it's unlikely they'll get any business because they use AI, so it can only hurt them.

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jlarocco an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Okay, but I (and I suspect a lot of people) really don't care if somebody is threatened in that way. If the business person doesn't want other people to know what they're doing then maybe they shouldn't do it. It's not worthy of a news article, IMO.

If somebody threatens them with violence (which is what "threat" is usually implying) then that's a different thing entirely.

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brandon272 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If I tell someone that I am going to take a coordinated effort to undermine their business and get customers to stop shopping there, potentially resulting in the demise of the business, the loss of their livelihood and ability to provide for themselves or their family, I cannot think of any reasonable person who would not categorize that as a threat. A threat by no means is limited to violence only.

I am really disturbed by language minimizes concrete actions taken to cause harm.

"I am not hurting your business I am just talking to my friends!"

	▲	jlarocco 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Sorry, but the business owner has to own their actions. If they have a large customer base of artists who will feel betrayed by their using AI, then it was a mistake to use it. It's her right to use AI, but the customers also have the right to say they won't patronize businesses who use AI, and are free to tell people they know that the business is using it. If the shop's oat milk was really cow's milk, would it be "threatening their business" to tell other customers that?

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fakedang an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

"It would be a pity if I were to tarnish jlarocco's reputation within my network. I even have his GitHub from his profile. I'll just talk shit about him to all the CTOs on the block and ensure he doesn't get a job again..."

See how that works? That's why you should care. The so-called influencer-orienter culture has become a plague after social media. And these F&B businesses are the ones hit hardest - remember all those movies in the 90s and 00s about how some up and coming entrepreneur or chef had to win the approval of some hoity-toity food journalist?

Also, rest assured, I'm not serious about badmouthing you or anyone here for that matter - just trying to illustrate a point.

	▲	jlarocco 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, I get it, but it only works if the "influencer" can actually influence a large enough group of customers, and my bet is that they can't. If it were me, I would have called their bluff and ignored them.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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Legend2440 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh, please. You know what they're threatening: an internet mob. That's not just "talking".

	▲	krapp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It was literally just talking, though.

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jrflowers an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Nobody threatened the business owner. Somebody offered the business a chance to change up the ad (and help doing so) before it got shared, and the owner figured it would be better to go viral with the slop ad. Now there’s an article in Business Insider painting the business as the victim of mean customers that assaulted it by not liking the slop poster, so it looks like it all worked out for them.