Getting rid of free office snacks doesn't come cheap
One of the best comments I've ever read on Hacker News was about this topic. I wish I'd saved the link.The point was that this engineer took the removal of any perk as a sign to leave, and soda/snacks was a huge one.Why? During the early stages of the company, the "free" soda and food was something everyone chipped in for to save money. And why shouldn't they all save money by buying things like this in bulk? The "free" things were more valuable to each employee than the total bulk cost of those things.The "taking away" of this "perk" represented a shift from a company that one was a valued member of to one that had a management vs. employees mentality. The idea became that the free soda/snacks was something that management gifted to employees to keep them happy.And that shift in culture was the signal to leave.