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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Upbeat_Ruin on 2025-08-21 16:12:19+00:00.
So this is more of a corporate debacle than a hobby, but I figured that if it’s well-researched and informative, it can stay.
Those of us who are Moistcritikal fans remember a stint he had a few years ago where he’d do commentary videos on stupid Kickstarter projects. Not quite as funny as his “The Real [insert infomerical product]” series in my opinion, but I did get a kick out of him ragging on things like wearable chairs and Wi-Fi integrated shoes that were basically the Techfoots from iCarly. He had particular ire for “smart” products that had no need to be “smart”. Before the era of corporations unnecessarily shoving AI into everything, there was a time when venture capitalists thought that everything from salt shakers to shoes needed to be Wi-Fi integrated. And this is the tale of Juicero, the platonic ideal of pointlessly “smart” products.
Riding on the raw foods craze of the mid-2010s, Juicero was a combined juice press and subscription service. Yes, a subscription service. For a juicer. Once you purchased a Juicero for a mere $700 (so thoughtfully reduced to $400 after poor sales…who could have guessed), you were able to order pre-bagged mixes of fruit, veggies, etc. to be shipped to your home and used in your press. And you could only buy these bags if you owned a Juicero.
Juicero as a company was founded by a chap named Doug Evans in 2013. Mr. Evans is an…interesting character. He’s one of those crunchy health types, a vocal vegan and raw organic aficionado. He is incredibly humble, likening himself to Steve Jobs. He’s also really into sprouts.
So let’s say you bit the bullet, bought this ludicrously expensive press, and ordered some bags of chopped up veggies and stuff, so now you’re ready to make some delicious juice. Okay! Let’s go over the steps!
- Pull out your phone and sign in to your account on the Juicero app.
- Choose the Wi-Fi account you want your press to access so it can make juice.
- Tap a button on the screen to generate a QR code.
- Scan that QR code on the press’s scanner.
- Wait for the press to connect to the Wi-Fi network.
- Select a juice pack from your mailed bundle and place it in the press, making sure that its spout hangs outside the door.
- Shut the door, place a glass under the spout, and press the button.
- Wait a few minutes for the juice to be pressed.
- EnjOy yOUr jUIcE
I am not making this up. But people actually bought this thing, un-ironically. By the way, the juice packs cost five to eight dollars each and only made one glass of juice. Leaving behind a non-recyclable plastic pouch in their wake. Additionally, the press would only accept Juicero-branded bags, so forget about pirating juice from off-brand pouches, you scoundrel!
Tech companies thought Juicero was the greatest thing since sliced bread, with corporations like Google throwing money at it and celebs like Justin Timberlake and Oprah singing its praises. It raised a hefty $120 million in startup capital.
The common person, on the other hand, was far less impressed. Juicero was mocked mercilessly by the internet, and rightfully so. The CEO (Jeff Dunn at the time, not Doug Evans) claimed that the reason for the ridiculous QR code system was to prevent people from putting expired or recalled bags into the juicer. Or they could, you know, read the expiry date and check the FDA’s recall lists every now and then.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) is often credited with accidentally slaying the market for aluminum Christmas trees, and a similar thing happened here. The Juicero empire was brought down with a simple one-minute video from Bloomberg Technology. In it, they compare the press’s squishing power to that of a person simply squeezing the bag with their hands. Squeezing the juice by hand is just as effective, and even slightly faster. To add insult to injury, they show a slight person with small hands doing it, showing that you don’t even have to be particularly strong.
But that wasn’t the only issue plaguing the much-maligned Juicero name. Oh no, not only were people saying mean stuff about them on the internet, a dastardly Chinese company was making a rival product and possibly infringing their valuable patent! In April 2017, they sued iTaste, a Chinese cold-press juicer company partnered with Froothie LLC of Delaware, for their Juisir product. The Juisir worked similarly to Juicero, except in this case, the user chopped their own produce and put it into a reusable bag for the press to squish out the juice. So it’s a rare example of a knockoff product with a better design than the original.
Sadly, Juicero folded before we could be entertained by a legal battle. In September of 2017, only 16 months after launch, Juicero announced that it would be suspending all sales of the press and offering refunds for 90 days after the announcement. Sales were dwindling, and now they had all kinds of bad press hanging over their heads, so the suits decided it was time to fold 'em. The company looked for a buyer, but as far as I can tell, nobody stepped up.
And the kicker? Juicero didn’t actually juice anything. You couldn’t use it to make juice with fresh produce. It only accepted the pre-mixed bags made by the company. So it was really just a $700 bag-squishing device. Hence the instructional video’s insistent terminology of calling it a “press”. And now that the company is defunct and the dumb app is offline, you can’t even do that. In 2025, Juicero does absolutely nothing. It’s a $700 piece of e-waste. Great job, Silicon Valley!
Despite the implosion of his company, Doug Evans’s health crusade continues, with him popping out like a groundhog every couple years with a new silly idea. Sorry, Doug, but drinking “raw water” (untreated groundwater) is actually pretty bad for you. Juicero’s legacy is now as a symbol of useless “innovation” made by out-of-touch venture capitalists. Except to see similarly overengineered products for imaginary problems to be called “The Juicero of [insert item here].”
Years after the fact, I showed Juicero to my father, a mechanical engineer who specializes in food processing equipment. I now know that Psychic Damage from DnD is real, because I’m certain the poor man took at least 50 points of it from seeing the video. I watched him go through all five stages of grief in 90 seconds.
He mainly had four things to say:
- “What the–?”
- “Why does it need to have a Wi-Fi connection?!”
- “A QR CODE?!?”
- “This is so pointless!”
I couldn’t agree more, Dad. There’s a good reason I showed him the version that plays “Tomfoolery” from Associated Production Music over the narration, because it helps soften the blow from the sheer stupidity.
The lesson we can take away from the Juicero debacle, I suppose, is the simple adage “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” Just because something is “innovative” or “disruptive” doesn’t mean it’s good. There’s a reason the design for the sewing machine has barely changed since the 1850s beyond safety features and going electric in the 1970s. Wanting less processed food in your life is understandable, admirable even. So just eat an apple. Part of the benefit of fruits and veggies is their fiber content, and a lot of that fiber is lost when they’re squeezed into juice.
References
The instructional video but with Spongebob music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOgIHOtSZGo
Moistcritikal weighs in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCRx78Zhj7s&list=PLT39SuAU_UdUZ9O_VUVR377k9XRG7kMjN&index=6
Bloomberg kills a company in 60 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lutHF5HhVA
The man, the myth, the Doug Evans: https://paulshapiro.medium.com/how-doug-evans-rose-from-the-ruins-of-juicero-45e13657d88c
Juicero vs the copycat: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/juice-wars-juicero-has-sued-another-juicer-maker-for-patent-infringement/
The death of Juicero: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/01/juicero-silicon-valley-shutting-down
The death of Juicero, view 2: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/01/rip-juicero-the-400-venture-backed-juice-machine/
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