I’m not doubting the existence of such article. I’m asking you to engage some critical thinking and not accept whatever cute, PR or otherwise “fun” narrative you read anywhere.

It’s “fun” to think that Starbucks struggles in Italy is because they are dumb and didn’t realize that Italians have a long cultural tradition with coffee that’s very different than Americans. “Oh dumb Americans and dumb Starbucks. How stupid are they to try to sell espresso in the land of espresso lol”. You need to engage just a little bit of critical thinking and realize that Starbucks knew that well in advance and thought the would give it a shot anyway. Maybe they could occupy a different cultural niche just like they did in dozens of other countries with similarly rich cultural traditions around coffeeshops and coffee or tea like the Middle East and Asia.

Critical thinking is long gone from most, and this site is now popular enough, and cs is main stream enough, that a good majority of this site even barely thinks beyond what fluff was put in front of them.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Why isn’t education around the basics of finance mandatory in school?

How does that account for the disgusting klarna ads I see in NYC that glorify buying things you cannot afford?

Either they got over their shock fast and learned how to take advantage of us, or it was the plan all along.