The point of company perks is to convince people to forgo more salary than the perks costs the company. On-site baristas are cheap, but they seem really expensive. In the end it’s a subsidized company cafeteria which has been a thing for the last 100 years or so.
The amount people care about free snacks is vastly out of proportion with the actual cost of providing free snacks. That’s great because young people making ~200k don’t really care much about slightly more gold plated health insurance coverage relative to how expensive it is.
> The point of company perks is to convince people to forgo more salary than the perks costs the company.
It's also that the company can provide these things to all employees for less than it would cost for every individual employee to buy them by themselves.
On the other hand, if you're going to have a communal coffee machine, might as well have a bunch of other stuff and then pay dedicated staff to run it, for the convenience of everyone else.
Maybe it's copycatting of the college dorm startup vibe, too.
The amount people care about free snacks is vastly out of proportion with the actual cost of providing free snacks. That’s great because young people making ~200k don’t really care much about slightly more gold plated health insurance coverage relative to how expensive it is.