Also, don't remember if mentioned above but the reason this DRM scheme was adopted is that Keurig is now owned by a coffee company - Green Mountain
Keurig was a subsidiary of Green Mountain from the start. All of this is just because the patent on k-cups ran out and their new patented machine (Vue) was a non-starter since it was even more expensive than old ones, let alone the flood of third party cups that appeared since licensing is no longer required.
Rogers Coffee (San Francisco Bay) actually produced a permanent clip-on "crack" for the 2.0 machines (though I think they've been having trouble getting them shipped), so folks with new machines can continue to use their products. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out if Green Mountain tries taking them to court.
Personally, I drink Green Mountain anyway; never had anything else (in the single-serve pre-ground category) that beats their Sumatran. So the only thing this all really does to me is that if my machine ever gives up the ghost (got six years so far, since it predates the big drop in reliability that came with the big retail push before the patent ran out) and Keurig weasels out of the lifetime warranty they claimed back when I bought it, I'll probably just buy a Cuisinart or other knockoff machine.
