Is Starbucks a good thing?

For years, I looked at Starbucks with suspicion, considering them a predator that pushed small coffee shops out of business.  Then I worked for a few years in Fort Washington (by Philadelphia), where Starbucks was the only option of getting coffee (not counting the horrible office coffee).  That already changed my opinion, as their quality is good, and the were active in the community, too.

I just read this interesting piece on Starbucks in the Economist, and they mention a few more tidbits that show that Starbucks, indeed, is different:

Full Article

"For Mr [Starbucks CEO] Schultz, raised in a Brooklyn public-housing project, this health insurance—which now costs Starbucks more each year than coffee—is a moral obligation. At the age of seven, he came home to find his father, a lorry-driver, in a plaster cast, having slipped and broken an ankle. No insurance, no compensation and now no job."

"The key is that each Starbucks coffee house should remain “a third place”, between home and work, fulfilling the same role as those Italian coffee houses that so inspired him 23 years ago. "