Slashdot Mirror
Some LA Coffee Shops Are Taking Wi-Fi Off the Menu
As New York is putting Wi-Fi on wheels, reader Hugh Pickens notes a counter trend in Los Angeles coffee shops. (We remarked on a similar backlash in Seattle in 2005.) "Coffee shops were the retail pioneers of Wi-Fi, but Jessica Guynn reports in the LA Times that now some owners are pulling the plug after finding that Wi-Fi freeloaders who camp out all day nursing a single cup of coffee are a drain on the bottom line. Other owners strive to preserve a friendly vibe and keep their establishments from turning into 'Matrix'-like zombie shacks where people type and don't talk. 'There is now a market niche for not having Wi-Fi,' says Bryant Simon. After Dan and Nathalie Drozdenko turned off the Wi-Fi at their Los Angeles cafe, the complaints poured in, but so did the compliments: Lots of customers appreciated a wireless cup of joe at the Downbeat Cafe, a popular lunch spot in Echo Park. 'People come here because we don't offer it. They know they can get their work done and not get distracted.'"
Lots of customers appreciated a wireless cup of joe at the Downbeat Cafe, a popular lunch spot in Echo Park. 'People come here because we don't offer it. They know they can get their work done and not get distracted.'"
It was wireless before. Do you mean 'connectionless' or something? :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
WiFi at these places is a privilege, not a right. You don't get to just buy a $2 drink, take over a table and hog it for hours during the busier part of the day. These cafes should have made it clear that if you want to stay during the busier time, that's fine and welcome, but you WILL be buying food and/or a steady supply of coffee.
It'd be painful in the short term because they'd have to tell some of these entitled hoity-toities that it is a privilege, not an entitlement and if they want to complain they can just GTFO.
Indie coffee shops used to have free wifi as a differentiator, while Starbucks charged. Now Starbucks has free wifi, so they're going to no/limited wifi as their differentiator. I guess it doesn't matter how it's different, so long as they just do something different.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Cutting off wireless access is pretty pointless. The better solution is to give 2 free hours and then give a code when you buy something else that gives you another 2. That at least keeps the freeloaders at bay. Caribou does something similar to this already. You aren't going to keep people from sitting there and surfing the internet though just by cutting off wi-fi. I like to take my iPad to coffee shops and read the news and it's tethered to my phone so I still have free internet regardless. I think had you done this in the early 2000s yeah, you would have stopped people from turning your coffee shop into an internet cafe, but in 2010, it's a little late.
I think they mean "wirelessless". Note wirelessless != wired.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
" you WILL be buying food and/or a steady supply of coffee."
They need to make it easier to keep buying coffee and food. At the moment, people have generally 3 choices when it comes to buying more:
1) Leave your stuff (including laptop) at seat while you get more coffee (and risk theft)
2) "Decamp" then buy more stuff (and risk losing your seat)
3) make a cup last as long as possible to avoid options 1 & 2
Basically, if coffee shops want to make more money from the WiFi hogs then they should look into something like table service, at least for people who have already been to the counter once. It gives people an easy way to spend money and the "nagging" effect of somebody asking if the hog wants to order more will make most of them either pay up or move on. It shouldn't be that much of an extra burden on staff as you need to have people going around and cleaning up tables anyway.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Versus having people come in and just mooch without pay or paying so little it costs you money? There are obviously pro's and con's on both sides, but if you think you can just go in and pay $2 and sit there for multiple hours surfing their internet, you need to wake up.
But I don't equate "customers only" to "fee". I understand that bathrooms in nice restaurants are for their customers only. I understand that those call in numbers on receipts for a "chance to win" isn't simply given out and you need to be a customer. Wifi should be the same way. You can use it proportional to how much of a customer you are. The problem with a fully open system is what they are seeing now. People who simply leech off their good will, take up space and create a less than enjoyable atmosphere.
"Not free" might be technically true. But totally free doesn't seem to be working as well as hoped and I understand, no, suggest that they lock it down a bit. Simply put, if you're going to Joe's Coffee Bazaar merely to use their internet and not purchase anything, you shouldn't be allowed to mooch their WiFi all you want. Purchase something and you're free to use their services.
I'm not going to care, as a business owner, if ultra cheapass wants to mooch wifi. I don't care about the wifi. I care about the sloth who isn't making me any money taking up a chair or a sofa or a table for hours on end.
Paying customers walk in, see that the wifi slugs are taking up all the places to sit, and just leave. That is the problem. It's not about the wifi. It's about getting the douches who think all businesses are charity operations designed to give them what they want for free that are the problem.
Look - security is a pyramid. At the peak of the pyramid are like national spying organizations, and at the bottom are literally animals. You usually only need to stop part of the problem to be effective. A doorknob stops feral cats or raccoons from getting in, but not criminals. A padlock stops hooligans, but actual criminals can break it. A deadbolt is better, but can still be picked by higher-end criminals. Vault doors and lasers stop all but the most professional of criminals or spies in their tracks.
But I don't need to worry about "what if Michael Westen or James Bond wants to raid my cash register?" because the odds of that are so low, I'm just not a target as a coffee shop. So if all I've got is some expresso machines and a few bucks in the register, I get a normal lock and some insurance, not armed guards.
This is the technology equivalent. I'm not worried about "what if he spoofs his MAC" or "what if he's war-driving from a remote controlled helicopter". I can solve 95% of my problem (people mooching off me) for 10% of the cost/effort, so I'll probably stop there.
If my boss tried to ask me why I didn't do the work he emailed to me while I was on lunch, I'd reply "Because I was on fucking lunch!"
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
If you want to seriously reduce the freeloaders then just simply remove or lock the electrical plugs around the shop. Whenever I'm in a coffeehouse and someone comes in for a serious session on their laptop, the first thing they do is look for a table near an electrical outlet and plug in. Most laptops will get between 2-4 hours of battery life doing mundane stuff, and less for anything more serious. No plug = self imposed time limit.
Better yet, put all the plugs over on one side or a specific section of your coffeehouse to keep the geeks away from your [cough] premium customers.