Starbucks coffee is horrible. But, in the US and Mexico (the only two places I know that started with lousy coffee and got better after Starbucks), they still managed to raise the bar well above what it was before its arrival. When Starbucks arrived in New York City (roughly 1992?), the average cup of coffee came from a diner or deli was brewed with very low-quality beans then left to sit on a burner until it either was sold or evaporated. Best case scenario was getting something from a "fresh pot". Typical scenario was coffee that was bad to begin with that had been completely ruined by the time you drank it. Mexico City was worse: Nescafe. Oddly, many Mexicans still prefer Nescafe. Starbucks changed that world by using high quality ingredients and equipment and establishing standards for how long coffee could sit around before being sold. For the espresso-based drinks, that standard was the time it took to make the beverage with a fresh shot (or more) of espresso and hand it to the customer. For drip coffee, it was longer (don't remember the duration) and rather than keeping the open carafe on a burner, the coffee was stored in a sealed, insulated container so that it didn't continue to "cook." Now, there are hundreds of great coffee shops in NYC; places like Grumpy's. They serve coffee that is substantially better than Starbucks. But without Starbucks showing people that coffee doesn't have to taste like battery acid they would have found it impossible to stay in business because few people would have known just how bad deli and diner coffee was. And they certainly wouldn't have been prepared to fork over $4 for a cup of coffee. If Starbucks had started in Italy, it would have lasted for roughly a day because the typical cup of coffee in Italy has always been freshly made with great ingredients and equipment. Starbucks still has close to zero presence in Italy after years of trying. So, yeah, Starbucks coffee sucks. But the vast majority of Americans wouldn't even know what good coffee was if Starbucks didn't exist.