flatreader

‘Planned obsolescence’: Woman warns against buying a Keurig after nightmare experience trying to ‘descale’ it

A woman is going viral on TikTok after warning others against buying Keurig coffee machines.

Madison (@sailor_maddie_) suggested that she recently purchased a Keurig. Shortly after buying it, though, Madison said she had issues with the machine that prevented her from making a cup of coffee.

In short, Madison said her Keurig “demanded to be descaled.” But Madison said she had already descaled it at least 10 times to no avail. As a result, she questioned whether her Keurig was built with a purposefully frail design, meant to frustrate the customer and, ultimately, cause them to throw it away or try to replace it with another one.

As of Saturday, Madison’s video calling out Keurigs and her specific machine had amassed more than 289,600 views.

What’s up with the content creator’s Keurig?

Madison said she went to make herself a cup of coffee when she noticed that her Keurig displayed an alert noting it needed to get “descaled.” That led Madison to descale it.

There’s one problem: She said she had already done so at least ten times beforehand.

Madison said she had descaled her Keurig using a descaler, hot water, and vinegar. Nothing had worked so far, though. In addition, Madison said she also tried unplugging her coffee machine.

“It still wants to be descaled,” Madison said. “So we [expletive] try again, I guess because I just want coffee.”

What is descaling a Keurig?

Descaling means cleaning the inside of your Keurig coffee maker by running a sort of solution through the machine to remove mineral build-up.

The Keurig website notes the descaling process differs based on which machine you have. You can find instructions for your specific coffeemaker on its site.

Assuming Madison followed the advice provided by Keurig, it’s unclear why her coffeemaker refused to work after she cleaned it. According to Good Housekeeping, vinegar can be used as an alternative to Keurig-branded descaling solution. (And, depending on where you buy it, vinegar may be way cheaper.)

To descale your Keurig, Good Housekeeping recommended removing any water from your Keurig’s reservoir and replacing it with 16 ounces of vinegar followed by 16 ounces of water. Then, it said to place a mug on the drip tray and to brew a cup as usual into the cup.

After repeating this process until the “ADD WATER” indicator shows, Good Housekeeping said to let your coffeemaker rest for at least 30 minutes before emptying the reservoir and washing it thoroughly.

To ensure your coffeemaker is free of coffee or cleaning solution, it said to put water in the Keurig’s reservoir and to perform “12 rinsing brews using the largest cup size.”

At that point, it said, your machine should be clean and ready to use.

Viewers attempt to help—but come too late

After Madison’s latest attempt at descaling failed, she made a follow-up video announcing that she had thrown her Keurig away.

“I’ve done everything I can to get this to register as descaled/clean. I honestly think it’s #plannedobsolescence after reading how many other people this happened to,” Madison wrote in the accompanying caption of her initial video. She added that of all the methods she used to try and fix her machine “NOTHING WORKED.”

“IT STILL WANTS TO BE DESCALED,” Madison added. “HOMIE, I WILL FIND A NEW RIG.”

While she turned off comments for her initial video, viewers who watched any of her several follow-up videos gave advice on how to clean the machine—even if they were too late.

“2 cups vinegar, 1 cup water,” one user wrote.

“Try adding baking soda,” another suggested.

“You didn’t put it in descale mode though,” a third user said.

Meanwhile, other Keurig users said they’ve had similar issues with their machine, suggesting that planned obsolescence was at play. By that, Madison and others were referring to manufacturers building consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete so that consumers will be forced to replace them.

“Used to have the older one and same,” one woman shared. “Had to toss it."

“I don’t think descaling does anything,” another said. “I had one that I kept running vinegar and water through, it didn’t help. Threw it in the dumpster and bought a ninja instead.”

“Same problem with mine. I did everything! At this point I’m defeated and the proud owner of a baby strobe light that sometimes makes a full cup of coffee,” a third user wrote.

The Daily Dot has reached out to Madison via TikTok comment.

Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

The post ‘Planned obsolescence’: Woman warns against buying a Keurig after nightmare experience trying to ‘descale’ it appeared first on The Daily Dot.