I feel that some independent coffee shops are being a little short-sighted. While I tend to favor giving my business to independent shops, one of the local ones here in SF has recently cut their free WiFi to 60 mins and blocked all power outlets. I don't really know what that's meant to accomplish, other than making me go elsewhere.
It's my experience that this holds true over more kinds of things than coffee shops. Large chain stores do things even when they're a pain from the employees' perspective, but small, independent shops tend to have the owners as workers in the shop, and so they make decisions which sometimes look like the decisions employees would make, rather than those that maximize profit and goodwill.
I've found this to be so for specific examples of grocery stores, bookstores, coffee shops, and hobby shops, at least. Sometimes the product is enough better to make up for this, though (especially with coffee).
Perhaps you're not the sort of customer some businesses want? Not everyone necessarily wants to feel like they're on a university campus at exam time or in the middle of a business park. A bunch of people with laptops is unwelcoming if you enter a coffee shop primed for chatter and flirting (for example).
It seems, there is a sweet spot of how many people you want in your coffee shop. If it looks empty, potential customers off the street won't go in. That's the herd effect ("if there are so many people there, then it must be good").
However, if the coffee shop is full of people with laptops, not buying any drinks or food, then customers who walk in, hoping to get a coffee and a muffin, will walk out, because there are too many people there, and not enough seats.
The goal of the owners is to module the amount of people sitting in the coffee shop.
They (the owners) can setup a schedule to simply disallow wi-fi usage and turn the power off on some outlets during certain busy times of day (lunch for ex.) That is a little subversive because it will be perceived as a confrontation. The other way to do it, is to simply ask the patrons to purchase more food and indicate that the coffee shop is struggling financially. Being honest might work a lot better.
I think an enforced, strict 60 minute rule is a bit stupid, but they are businesses, and ultimately they wouldn't be continuing to enforce these rules and block the power outlets if it wasn't working to achieve what the business owner wanted - i.e. less of the laptop users who generally use more resources than they end up paying for via purchases of coffee and whatnot.
I do think there is a balance somewhere and it takes both the business and the customer to work together to achieve...consider the POV of someone who has to deal with the subset of particularly bad laptop users (e.g. my earlier comment on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749680)...but I do wish more people would understand the economics of running a coffee shop. Starbucks by virtue of being a well-known international chain of coffee shops (and therefore a coffee shop where you know there is some sort of known baseline of drink quality, the menu is more or less the same, and you probably have some sort of drink you order frequently in the right words, etc.) has such an easier time of bringing in customers that indie shops do not have. That same name doesn't just appeal to customers, it also appeals to everyone from lenders to management companies when first opening a business and then to suppliers when continuing to run the business. Starbucks has the resources needed, if the name alone isn't enough, to negotiate better leases and spaces, prices for supplies needed bought in massive bulk quantities...you get the idea.
So it's nice Starbucks is reaching out to people like this during this time where many people are struggling, but so are many smaller independent coffee shops, and they don't have all those benefits Starbucks does - and just letting people do whatever they want on the wifi is not (usually) the answer. It's also one thing to restrict wifi to 60 minutes for all customers, and it's another to feel entitled to use free wifi and lots of power for hours on end after buying a small coffee. Both are frustrating. I don't know. I guess it's really up to the owner to figure out what works. As a laptop owner, it never makes me happy to see those types of restrictions, but as someone who has run these businesses before, I'm not happy to see the small but annoying percentage of laptop users who have entitlement issues.
The local coffee shop near me puts out power strips to encourage people to bring their laptops and use the unlimited free WiFi. That makes it's easy for me to support them :)
I agree. It surprises me how customer-unfriendly so many small coffee shops are... I love the ambiance at some of them in SF, but when I really need to be sure I can plug in the laptop and get a comfy chair, Starbucks is usually the safer bet.
You're mistaking customer unfriendly with laptop-unfriendly.
Most of the time, I prefer to not feel like I stepped into a laptop-geek-chic convention when I visit a cafe.
Sometimes I want a place where I can just use my laptop -- on those occasions, I visit a cafe where I'm welcome to destroy the ambience (such as any exists) by staring glass-eyed into my laptop screen.
Well, I focused on the laptop factors, but it's really remarkable how much Starbucks' processes have sped up the process of getting coffee...
First, someone asks what you want then writes on the cup and passes it to the barista to get started... They can do this a few people ahead and often do, so that by the time you are paying your drink is almost ready.
Contrast this to the independent coffee shops which usually have a frazzled hipster avoiding eye contact with all but the first person in the line, and then spending most of his/her time trying to make your drink while the other person working there is chilling out also avoiding eye contact... based on what seems like some arrangement between the workers to take alternate customers.
Don't get me wrong, I love coffee shops and often it's worth dealing with a bit of frustration or lack of professionalism... it's just crazy how much Starbucks has innovated in this area... something that probably makes a huge difference in how much coffee gets sold when the line gets long.
I don't go to Starbucks because of their Wi-Fi. Most places I can just walk in and start using it, but with Starbucks I need to maintain a cash card and register it online, then after that it has a time limit. It sounds simple to do, but it's yet another card I need to carry around with me everywhere for no good reason.
I just went through that whole sign up process, and ended up at att.com, staring at a screen demanding my starbucks card # and pin.
It says you can get your 2 hours a day if you have a starbucks card that you've topped up in the last 30 days. Just like the grandparent whinged about.
So maybe it got good for a month or two and reverted, but regardless, it's still painful today.
I can get a ton of stuff done at a Starbucks. I'm usually more productive there than at home, actually.
The key is that even though there's lots of noise and people talking, you're virtually guaranteed that nobody will be talking to you. That means you're completely free of distractions, and, as an added bonus, enveloped in a cloud of vaguely enthusiastic white noise.
There's this energy around you that somehow inspires you to actually do some interesting work rather than slack off and read the internet. You want people walking past to see an IDE and some cryptic-looking code on the screen, rather than pictures of cats with funny captions. The whole experience is a bit of a feedback loop.
When I lived in the States, I would routinely head off to a Starbucks to work away the morning, leaving my comfy home office & wifi behind to do so.
Here in Chile you can stay as long as you want and there are no time restrictions on the free WiFi. Almost every other day I spend a few hours working at a Starbucks.
Recently a Colombian competition, Juan Valdes, opened a few shops here, but they restrict the free WiFi use to 60 mins. You don't see a lot of people working there.
* Almost every other day I spend a few hours working at a Starbucks.*
This is, I think, the crux of the issue. Most indy shops don't mind this--it's the people who are there for 8 hours at a time, nursing a single cup of coffee. I work several hours per week at my neighborhood cafe, but I'm attentive to how much money I spend and whether I'm taking up table space.
I do agree that many cafes are, perhaps, over-reacting, but at the same time, I can understand the root problem.
They might say that. But for whatever reason I'd feel a lot less comfortable staying in the nearest Starbucks for a long time (say, a few hours) than in any of the independent coffee places in my neighborhood. This might just be me, though.
Starbucks typically has for-pay wifi. Independent coffee shops offer free wi-fi, at least the ones I've been to do.
The result is always the same: the place is MOBBED with people who park there with their third-quarter projection analysis spreadsheets while customers looking to sit down and eat must get it "to go".
I like coffee shops. Sometimes I like to sit and park and hack. But I can understand the reasons why they implement policies like this. Starbucks just found another solution to the problem, which seems superficially to make them look less like jerks: charge for wi-fi.
I'm a little surprised. I always thought Starbucks' stores were set up to discourage people from staying there too long. Still, it's a smart move for them to appeal to that demographic. If I were getting turned out of my favorite local cafes and found a welcome at Starbucks, I think what the author says is true: it would change my perception of Starbucks and probably create some loyalty. Happily, though, that isn't my experience. I'm off to the second floor of Red Rock in Mtn View as soon as I post this!
I'm pretty sure that Starbucks does do some things to discourage people from staying there a long time. One thing noted in this and other threads is the availability of outlets. In some larger SBXs, there are tables with power strips; in smaller ones, there may only be one or two tables where you can plug something in.
But where things get more interesting are the subtleties. Before I got an office share, I did a lot of tutoring in SBXs, meaning I'd be there for sometimes 6-8 hours at a stretch. One thing I noticed in multiple locations was that the music would change--dramatically--every so often. (Maybe every hour, I don't know.)
People think of SBX as having pretty standard cool jazz, laid-back r&b...the genre that might as well be referred to as "coffeehouse." But when it changes up, it can be jarring. Go from Norah Jones to an old Charlie Parker recording, and it is at least subconsciously disturbing. It's never blatant, never music that says "don't stay!" to someone just walking in, but enough to say, "time to change gears" to someone who settled in to one type of music.
Of course this is all supposition on my part. But there has been tons of research done by Musak and others to determine buying patterns based on volume/music type/etc., and if it makes it easy for SBX to say one thing while ever-so-gently nudging people out the door, it seems like a great way to get the desired effect.
They might do well to charge a fairly low rate, basically "Not free", to weed out some subset of people who come for the wi-fi. People who only want free wifi may be the kind of people less likely to buy drinks.
They'd free up some seats but not put off every laptop user.
Have a large number of small, work-centric tables, then a 'laptop-free' area with larger tables, and maybe some comfy chairs and couches. Have a big polite (or goofy) sign that suggests one side is for chatting and flirting, and one for writing and nerding.
I'd put the laptops near the windows so the place always looks full, but likely has free space in the back.
Tryst in Adams Morgan in Washington DC turns their wifi off on the weekends, which also seems like a reasonable compromise.
I always found it strange that Starbucks charged for Wifi. Glad to see they at least give you a little for free these days (even if it requires some serious hoop jumping).
It amazes me that there are actually still coffee shops in the world that don't offer free wifi. It's so cheap to set up, and so obviously good for business that it just doesn't make any sense not to do it.
I wanted to support my local franchised coffee shop rather than Starbucks, but the WiFi was too unreliable. It's a huge downer when you're ready to get into the zone and the WiFi doesn't work.
Starbucks makes you jump through hoops to log in (via my AT&T account), but it's fast and it works every time.
It's not cheap, and that, at least, is good. But in Europe you won't find free Wifi and power outlets, and you'll probably look stupid with a laptop in a coffee frequented by lots of tourists.
But there's no other place to stay with your laptop, so... nothing to do there.
The solution to the problem that laptop user consume not enought ist not a ban of laptop, but a change in serve. Ban self service and laptop user will order more coffes.
That is real old school coffee house feeling, much more inspiring anyway.
co-working places and coffee shops might hook up better in the future. It could even be a source of revenue, it could even go further, small co-working malls.
They don't care if you stay as long as you want because you have to PAY for the freaking wifi. Duh.
Most coffee shops give you free wifi so yes it is kind of abusive to buy a $1.50 coffee and stay for hours. However, if you have to pay for the wifi, I don't see the problem with staying indefinitely.
I feel that some independent coffee shops are being a little short-sighted. While I tend to favor giving my business to independent shops, one of the local ones here in SF has recently cut their free WiFi to 60 mins and blocked all power outlets. I don't really know what that's meant to accomplish, other than making me go elsewhere.