And that's not an accident.

They've become the biggest coffee chain in the world through incredibly clever marketing, devious design, and an uncanny ability to make people spend their money.

This is how Starbucks brainwashed a generation.

A huge thank you to Ground News for sponsoring today's video.

Now if you've been a loyal subscriber here on the channel for a while, you might know that we made a video about Starbucks and how they revolutionized the coffee industry.

Well, this is sort of a part two to that original one.

In that video, we talked about how they spearheaded the whole fair trade idea and then completely abandoned it, how they pioneered the coffee shop as a third place to hang out, and how they made specialty coffee a mainstream phenomenon for Americans, anyways.

Now those three things alone would have made them an icon within the coffee world.

But the thing is, Starbucks is not just a brand of coffee.

The reason why we're making this video right now is because at the time of writing this script, they've lost $11 billion in revenue as well as faced boycotts due to their stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict and union busting.

But this isn't the first time that this company has faced boycotts or social backlash.

Over the years, they have received hate from the left and the right alike.

Starbucks has proven to be a pretty sketchy, giant corporation.

They've been caught using child labor in 2020, and then again two years later, and have been union busting for years.

But despite all of this chaos, all of this outrage at this company, they are still a global leader.

Why?

How?

Why do people keep going back?

Well, it's because they've convinced millions of people that they aren't just a place to go and get coffee.

They are the only place to go and get coffee.

Starbucks is disturbingly good at making themselves a part of people's lives.

Over the years, they have created a connection with their core base that it seems like almost nothing can shake.

So we mentioned the controversy around Starbucks' stance on unions earlier, and we wanted to dig a little further into all of this.

Using Ground News, we found a bunch of information, like how Starbucks and Workers United finally announced a path forward to reach collective bargaining agreements.

Now, if you don't already know them,

Ground News is an app and a website that gathers news articles from all over the world with context so you truly understand what is going on.

We can access all 45 sources for this story, including the press release from Starbucks.

Most of them lean politically left or center, so this could have been missed or not on your radar if you consume mostly right-leaning news.

And if we look deeper, this is where it gets really interesting.

We can see that some articles are just sticking to the reporting on the start of these bargaining talks, while others give more context, like how the former CEO of Starbucks stepping down last year played a huge role in this breakthrough.

But the fight's not over yet.

We keep working with Ground News because we truly resonate with their values.

Their one-of-a-kind platform perfectly syncs with our mission at Future Proof, which is to empower you all to make the informed decisions that you need to by sharpening your critical thinking skills.

And they're a proudly Canadian company just like us, so check them out at ground.news.com.

You can join for as little as $1 a month or use our link to get 40% off their unlimited access Vantage plan, making infinite knowledge cheaper than your daily nitro cold brew.

A huge thank you to Ground News for sponsoring today's video.

Now let's get back into it.

See, people are so locked into the Starbucks routine that it's basically an addiction.

For many people, the local Starbucks coffee shop is their only local coffee shop.

This is because they are the biggest coffee chain in the world, with almost 40,000 stores in over 80 countries.

And this might seem like an arbitrary or obvious part of the story, but being able to get your fix on the way to work or when you go out of town cannot really be understated here.

I have known people who have booked all-inclusive resorts in another country because there was a Starbucks down the road.

These people would leave the resort where they get their free coffee, get in an Uber down the street, pay for a Starbucks, and then return to the resort.

Or they would get it delivered through Uber Eats.

I am completely serious.

And this is all a part of Starbucks' genius manipulation tactics.

They know that a lot of the reason why people choose to continue to come back to their shops and why they seek out their shops, even when they're on vacation, is because of their consistency.

No matter which of those 80-plus countries that you are in where Starbucks has stores, your experience there will be pretty much exactly the same.

And there is a very specific reason for this.

Almost half of Starbucks worldwide are licensed.

This means that the store is independently owned, but the store owners pay for the company's intellectual property, the branding, the logo, the drink recipes, the cups.

But in the case of Starbucks, they've included operational methods as a part of their intellectual property, all the way down to where the basket of plastic bottles is placed.

Whether you walk into their home location in Seattle or a cafe on the other side of the world, you know pretty much where everything is going to be and that it's going to be exactly the same, except for the prices.

In this context, not only is the physical space, the lighting, and the smell all the same, but your Triple Venti No Frap Frappuccino is going to taste the same, too.

And all of a sudden, the people in the resort kind of start to make sense, right?

Even if you're in a country where you don't speak the language or understand the culture or the directions back to the beach, you know exactly what to expect when you walk into that Starbucks.

But they take this one step further in the digital realm, too.

One of the more recent innovations that further entrenches people into the Starbucks ecosystem is the Starbucks Rewards app.

Of course, there are a lot of other chains and brands that have similar concepts for their stores, but none of them have done it quite as well or had the legendary success of Starbucks.

See, this app is designed to make the whole experience of going to Starbucks even more seamless.

Regular customers can use it to pre-order, pre-pay, and then skip half the line for a speedy pickup.

And the more that you use the app, the more free drinks you get.

But this app isn't just a nifty way to get a free drink on your birthday or skip a line or whatever.

For Starbucks, the app represents a whole new hold on the wealth that their dedicated following can offer.

Now, some of you might have seen an absolutely great video by fellow YouTube creator Pauly Matter.

In that video, he breaks down how Starbucks has turned their Starbucks Rewards program into its own proprietary banking system.

To summarize a part of his video, the loading of money onto the Rewards cards isn't just being used to pay for your drinks.

That money is being held by Starbucks and then used in other ways that most people are just completely unaware of.

Apparently, this is legal.

And apparently, the Rewards program and the reloadable cards represents a significant amount of the chain's recent fiscal growth.

This is in part because the company is profiting off of those funds, even if the cards are never used.

That means the Starbucks cards are holding more in deposits than some American banks.

In fact, if Starbucks were a bank, it would rank among the top 10% of American financial institutions.

On top of using your money to make more money, the app also uses the analytics based on your purchase habits to inform their push notifications.

This includes personalized marketing about happy hour events and other perks that you might want to indulge in.

So you started using the app because you thought it was gonna be convenient, and then they ended up using your money to make more money, and then they started mining your data to get you to buy more, and this is probably not what you thought was gonna happen when you signed up to get that free birthday Frappuccino.

And that Frappuccino is the next part of this story.

See, I can tell you, because I am a person who lived in the times before Starbucks and after, that before Starbucks existed, nobody knew what the hell a Frappuccino was.

See, Starbucks sells coffee, but not because of passion or need, but because it's high in caffeine and therefore addictive.

But the real innovation behind Starbucks' beverages was the specialty drink culture that they created, which just added sugar to the equation, making them even more alluring.

Today, most people that order a drink at Starbucks aren't getting a coffee with cream in it.

The latte or cappuccino is the bare minimum, and most opt for a much more complicated flavored, seasonal, or color-coordinated beverage that look more like candy than coffee.

And this is just the stuff that's literally on their menu.

Apparently, there is a whole culture around secret menu drinks that I sadly had to learn about in the making of this video.

This has to be like the moment in which you realize just how lost in the sauce some people are with the whole Starbucks thing.

If you go on your phone right now and you look up Starbucks on TikTok, you're gonna find hundreds of secret menu drink videos.

And there are websites and other videos on other platforms that do the same thing.

These drinks were invented, I think, by Starbucks rider dyes with too much time on their hands, basically.

They basically take preexisting menu items and then add a whole bunch of customizations onto it that eventually turn it into a whole new drink.

And these things are expensive because each add-on is like 50 cents a pop.

I get why it happens, but I just wanna say two things on this before we move on.

One, don't buy these, okay?

Your barista hates you, the people behind you hate you, and you just don't need to do this, which brings me to my second point.

I personally just think it's such a bummer when people channel their artistic energy into something as trivial as Team Edward versus Team Jacob Frappuccinos, okay?

Maybe I'm being judgmental here, but sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if people spent more time expressing themselves in ways that didn't, you know, directly fund a massive company, you know?

Like, draw something, you know, cook something.

I don't know, learn how to do a handstand.

Just don't do it in a Starbucks.

All right, but now we're gonna get into one of my favorite parts of this whole scenario, and that is the cup.

The Starbucks to-go cup is iconic, and it is an often overlooked and brilliant tool in the retention of customers.

See, first and foremost, the cup eliminates all responsibility from the consumer.

Not only do you not have to buy the ingredients for the coffee or make the coffee in the first place, but the disposable cup removes all cleanup.

This reduces the friction of the whole interaction almost completely.

The brilliance of the disposable cup as a tool is probably why, more than anything else, the reusable cup trend truly never reached the mainstream.

Let me explain why.

See, this cup wouldn't have worked if it sucked to use.

Now, of course, Starbucks didn't invent the disposable cup, but they did adapt their design and emblazoned each and every single one of them with their iconic logo, of course.

Probably the only real innovation that they did was add that little green stir stick thing that acts as a stopper for the top of the to-go lid so you can bring it wherever you need to go.

It also conveniently serves as a bit of a beacon to tell everybody that your drink is from Starbucks when you're on the street or whatever.

But these cups are actually a design masterpiece.

They have to be nice to hold, retain their heat, but not burn your hand, they can't leak, and they have to feel good to drink out of, all the while being cheap enough for the company to give them away for free with every single purchase.

And here you are, from a consumer standpoint, you've paid $6 for a coffee and a tip, and you don't wanna have to clean up after it, right?

That cup becomes a part of the luxury that you're paying for.

And look, I hate these things.

They're terrible in so many ways.

Almost all of them are lined with plastic, they're completely unrecyclable or compostable, and they just have to be trashed.

But that doesn't really matter, because for a mass-produced product, they are impressively well-made, which completely aligns with Starbucks' promise to center the customer's experience above all else.

Now, if you are a little bit concerned about the planet, don't worry, Starbucks hears you.

They want you to know that they introduced the industry's first paper beverage cup containing 10% post-consumer recycled fiber.

Like, that's a huge milestone or something.

And yet, when you try to click on the links to learn more about the disposable cup's sustainability commitments, all the links are dead.

And this is kind of their entire approach to sustainability.

It's all just marketing.

It's the classic corporate responsibility gimmick.

Create enough plans and announcements to keep your core customer base satisfied that you're not just some ruthless, terrible corporation f**king up the planet, and then just go ahead with business as usual.

For example, one of their more recent things was their Greener Stores initiative.

Basically, a bunch of nice interior design and some buzzwords to make you feel like you're doing your part in the global effort to stop climate change, just in the same way that you thought you were making a difference supporting free trade coffee at Starbucks before they scrapped that idea too.

Once again, you'll have to watch our first video if you wanna know what I'm talking about there.

And as per usual, this is all just a distraction from their questionable politics, their shady ingredients, and their announced but yet to materialize compostable cups.

Their whole marketing tactic kind of reminds me of being a teenager.

You know, you get a job, you show up for one week, and then you quit, but then you just keep it on your resume.

Like, it's not technically a lie, but it's definitely not true either.

Now, all of this culminates into the final objective, which is to brainwash people into choosing Starbucks without even thinking about it.

Their presence all over the world, the app, the cup, and the fancy sugary coffee itself is all there to make them the most appealing and most convenient choice possible.

For a lot of people, sipping that first sip of Starbucks coffee in that cup defines the start of each day.

And research shows that repeated action in a consistent context becomes a habit.

This is called associative learning, which you might know from the story of Pavlov's dog.

Pavlov would ding a bell when it was time to feed his dog, and eventually the dog started salivating at the sound of the bell, whether or not there was actually even food present.

Now, I'm sure you would like to think that you are smarter than a dog or have more willpower or impulse control than a hound, but I hate to burst your bubble.

Studies show that more than likely, you're a dog.

Maybe even a cute dog, but you're a dog.

We're all dogs, really, and Starbucks knows it.