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Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves
fobbman writes: "Portland Oregon's Pioneer Square (the heart of downtown) has had free WiFi access provided since February by Personal Telco, which is a local group of computer hobbyists. Now Starbuck's is planning on offering the same service on the same band in the same area for $29.95 a month, according to this story in the local fishwrap. Without regulation or licensing, and with WiFi growing, this could become a common problem."
What bonehead possibly thought that this was a troll? This is an honest discussion, voiced from my opinions. There are good opinions, and bad opinions, and just because you don't agree doesn't mean I'm feeding the trolls. The moderations here are really tending to suck lately. Just because some grassfucker wants the free guys to win (Starbucks = bad corporate evil giant) doesn't mean they will, but either way, it's simply OPINION until it happens. Then it becomes FACT. If all who speak their opinions here get modded as trolls, it would tend to cause a lot less intellight opinions being voiced. And God knows, this place doesn't need any further intelligence dilution! Bad Mod: Previous post. If you wanna mod this as a Flame, go ahead, it is. I have Karma to burn.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
<<<And the worst part of all about Starbucks, their socially abusive coffee doesn't even taste good. Pretty much every other chain is better.>>>
Gotta agree with you on this count. I grew up in Hawai'i,
with access to freshly roasted Kona coffee at coffee shops
all over, and with 24 hour espresso (as opposed to coffee)
shops in the neighborhood of every college, including most
community (2 year) colleges. And then Starbucks moved in.
The small little independant shops vanished. OK, so a few
of them have survived, maybe 20% of the ones that they had
before Starbucks.
On the flip side, the only place I can get a wi-fi hookup
when I visit my parents is a Starbucks, and going from DSL
to dial-up is just too painful...
Outside of the piss-poor coffee, and the killing mom & pop
coffee shops, I appreciate Starbucks. A mulled cider on a
freezing night after coming in from a four hour workout on
a polynesian outrigger canoe, with my team, that practices
past sundown, in California, which may seem warm to people
from other parts of the mainland, but for a Hawai'i local,
is downright cold... and I worship the girl serving me the
blessed warmth. Maybe, if Starbucks hadn't come in, there
would be small shops selling hot non-caffeinated beverages
at 10pm near Venice Beach, but as it stands only Starbucks
is open when I need that warmth...
The truth is, if I want decent coffee, I know places to go
in LA... Peets, or, if I'm not near one of those (and they
are few and far between), Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf... and
some of the really unusual places survived Starbucks. The
bizarre fanboy coffee shop across from Canter's on Fairfax
seems to do constant business. The unexpectedly laid back
internet cafe in Hollywood next to the statues on La Brea,
the South American cocoa bean and coffee roasting place in
Manhattan Beach...
Starbucks is like McDonalds. Crap quality, but consistant
across locales; they're all the same. People pay quite a
bit to not be surprised. Now, I won't eat from McDonalds,
but Starbucks doesn't actually nauseate me... it isn't too
unpleasant, even.
Surprisingly, I discovered, when circumstances left a half
hour to burn at 2am near a 24 hour Dennys, that they serve
an arabica coffee that isn't far from Starbucks quality at
a fraction of the cost... to wit, drinkable, in the sense
that Sam Adams' is a drinkable beer... not something with
actual value, but not so bad that you want to spit it out.
Here's the thing... if you're in a strange city, where you
know nothing and no-one... say, you travel on business (to
install enterprise software on customer sites, maybe), and
you end up at a hotel the night before you drive up to the
customer facility... It's after 8 pm, so any Apple store,
or whatever other wi-fi provider you know of closed... and
you really need to check in for updates... how do you find
a place where you can get wi-fi access? The way I see it,
Starbucks is more about the location than the coffee. The
goth/punk/hacker 24 hour shops of my college years were an
amazing thing, and I miss them, but the truth is, they are
not somewhere I could go today...
Sure, I'd prefer something other than a corporate monster,
long tentacled and greed-driven. Hell, I won't even touch
Ben & Jerry's when given a choice, and if I find a smaller
coffee shop where I'm going, and a wi-fi node, I'll gladly
chance the unknown place. I've only really regretted that
decision once... though I should have known better than to
even order a coffee from a local shop in Indiana, when the
sign didn't even list beyond decaf and regular... and that
coffee may have been bad, but the sweet old couple working
the counter (I assumed they were the owners) made it worth
it... and the pie was good.
See, I don't object to Starbucks existing. I don't mind a
few people succeeding from humble beginings. I do mind it
when they deliberately crush all competition, removing all
choices other than them.
So far, I haven't seen enough of that to make me hate that
Seattle coffee shop. Unlike, say, that Seattle (well, not
far from) software shop. Not the image and printing tools
one, the really big one.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement