The Fisherian Runaway

Starbucks is in the midst of an identity crisis.

It’s closing 400 stores this year, not dying, exactly, they still have 16,000 stores in the US, but no longer growing like they used to. For the first time in decades, the company is consolidating, uncertain of what it has become.

I don't enjoy going to Starbucks anymore. Even its new CEO admits the stores have grown too uncomfortable and inefficient, that the in-store experience isn't as elevated as it should be. It’s a worse place than it was years ago and everyone is starting to realize it

Mobile orders dominate the counter. Drinks keep getting stranger, some have olive oil, others protein, most are dessert in disguise. Starbucks has found a way to let adults eat ice cream at 9 a.m. without shame. The interior discourages both conversation and reflection. It’s a coffee version of a weed dispensary, bright, clinical, and efficient.

@theundedicatedcrafter

Starbucks new protein coffee is trash and no I didn’t add or edit any ingredients. This is the Vanilla Protein Latte ordered right off the menu.

In the beginning, Starbucks solved a real problem. It offered high-quality espresso and a calm, European-style environment in a country that mostly drank Folgers and Dunkin Donuts. Its lighting was warm, its music gentle. It sold a mood as much as a drink.

Then came the feedback loop. Customers loved the Frappuccino (1995), so Starbucks made more sweet drinks. They loved seasonal novelty, so came the Pumpkin Spice Latte (2003). They wanted faster service, so came mobile ordering. Each move made sense individually. But together, they created a runaway loop between company and customer.

Each new drink trained customers to expect more sugar, more customization, more indulgence. Those expectations, in turn, pushed Starbucks to go even further. The company and its customers co-evolved toward absurdity, rewarding exaggeration over substance. A small preference became a defining trait.

The same thing happened to the physical store. Mobile ordering looked like progress, so Starbucks re-engineered itself around the app. The barista became an assembly-line worker. The store shrank, service accelerated, lighting hardened. The cafe that once invited people to linger became one that urged them to leave.

Now, other places are quietly filling the niche it abandoned.

Starbucks is trying to break the loop. Its new CEO says his company must “return to coffee.” The plan is to slow down, simplify menus, and make stores feel human again. After decades of runaway selection for speed and sugar, Starbucks is trying to evolve back toward what made it survive in the first place. But that is very hard when you’re in a Fisherian Runaway situation.

Fisherian Runaway

Biologists have a term for this kind of self-exaggerating loop, Fisherian runaway. It’s when a small, attractive trait spirals into absurdity through feedback between preference and display. Ronald Fisher first used it to explain how certain animals evolve features that seem to defy reason.

The peacock’s tail began as a modest signal of health. But once peahens preferred longer tails, the signal fed on itself. Each generation favored extravagance over practicality. The tail became costly to grow, easy for predators to spot, and required constant maintenance, yet selection kept amplifying it.

Nature is full of these ornamental dead ends. The Ribbon-tailed Astrapia of New Guinea has tail feathers that stretch three times its body length. They complicate flight and waste energy, yet persist because the display became the point. The ornament became difficult to live with.

Each iteration of customer feedback stretched its tail further, more sugar, more speed, more novelty. Starbucks became a corporate peacock. The display outgrew the function.

And in nature, as in business, some signals lead to collapse. The Irish elk’s antlers once stretched nine feet across and weighed more than ninety pounds. The enormous antlers are widely interpreted as the product of runaway sexual selection.

Female elk preferred males with larger racks, so selection kept pushing the trait upward. Antler growth imposed heavy metabolic demands, especially in cold or resource poor conditions, and likely made the species more vulnerable to ecological stress. Runaway selection didn’t directly kill the species, but it made it fragile enough that environmental change did. In the end the trait that signaled vitality became a burden too costly to bear.

Peacock Cities

Big cities are caught in their own Fisherian runaway.

Cities like New York were places where you paid a high cost to be there, but it paid off in opportunity. High rent was an honest signal of access, the price of being near ideas, ambition, and upward mobility.

Then, desirability became its own signal.

The high cost of survival turned into proof of talent. Simply living there became the display. Like a peacock's tail, the signal, "I can afford this struggle" grew more elaborate and costly, admired even as it became a heavier burden. Living in the city resembles being in a cult.

Like Starbucks, the city optimized for the tastes of its most devoted customers. Ambitious people came seeking opportunity, so the city gave them more to chase, longer hours, tighter competition, steeper rent. Each new difficulty signaled drive, and that signal drew in even more driven people. The loop reinforced itself. Paying $2,000 for a studio became $3,500 for a room with three roommates. Working 60 hours became 70

In a runaway environment, the signal itself becomes the reward. The ability to function within an artificial, high-cost, high-pressure environment that no longer maps to the city’s original purpose.

Now survival itself is the product. Living in New York no longer proves you can convert density into opportunity. It proves you can endure difficulty for its own sake. The city stopped selling what it once made and started selling the feeling of just being in the city.

Out of this fatigue comes politicians like Mamdani, who won by promising to make the city livable again, to cap rents and slow the treadmill. Basically like the new Starbucks CEO who is promising a return to good coffee again.

What's interesting is that awareness rarely breaks the cycle. Even knowing we're in runaway doesn't let us opt out, because the signaling game persists whether or not individuals participate consciously.

Corporate Speak: A Fisherian Runaway

Language evolves like everything else.

Professional language started as a solution. It signaled competence. It separated serious business from casual conversation. Early corporate speak was actually precise, technical terms for technical concepts. The words meant something.

Then people noticed a pattern.

Elaborate language got you promoted. It got you into important meetings. It made people take you seriously. So everyone started copying it. "Let's discuss" became "let's table this for our next sync" became "let's put a pin in this and circle back offline to align on next steps."

@loewhaley

Moist Regards #wfh #workbestie #howto #relatable #corporate #toodaloo

Each generation trained the next to expect more elaboration. The expectations pushed professionals to go further. Competence and communication co-evolved toward absurdity. A small preference became a defining trait.

Jargon created fog. Projects failed but the language provided cover. "We didn't align on the strategic imperatives before actioning the key deliverables" hid "I didn't do my job" inside enough words that no one could prove anything.

Here's the problem, this language is worse at communicating. It's slower, vaguer, harder to parse. It obscures responsibility. It wastes time. But you can't opt out. Speaking plainly now signals lack of sophistication or being an outsider.

Speaking plainly marks you as unsophisticated, an outsider. ntelligence and communication have completely separated. The language detached from the competence it was supposed to signal and became pure display.

The more words we add, the less we say. The display outgrows the function