Coffee, concentrate
Aug 13th 2010, 4:45 by G.F. | SEATTLE
THE regular hiss of the espresso machine turning grounds into gold isn't all that distracts you at a coffeeshop. Internet access and power outlets available in most cafés in the developed world might sap your productivity as much as it beefs it up.
Most independent and small chain coffeeshops have had a long-running battle between offering Wi-Fi and the consequences. A typical tale from store managers is of patrons who buy a single cup of coffee or tea and blockade a four-seat table for eight or more hours. A space full of such people turns kaffeeklatsch into a silence broken only by the tapping of keyboard keys. In others, however, customers use the network briefly, and turnover is brisk.
Café owners have talked about their discomfort for years. This correspondent filed a report about a Seattle store, Victrola Coffee and Art, in 2005, just a few years into the unwiring revolution, in which Starbucks was then at the vanguard. Victrola's founders didn't like a sea of checked-out customers, and started turning off Wi-Fi on the weekends. The experiment led to success, they said. People who otherwise avoided the café came in, and the place became chummy on Saturdays and Sundays. In the years since, hundreds of articles have appeared about similar cases in which a coffeeshop turns off the signal, and sometimes blocks electrical outlets.
The tone has shifted more recently, though, as café owners are both turning off the signal and banning the use of computers and mobile devices entirely. Nick Bilton, the New York Times' Bits blog editor, was banned from reading a book on his Kindle at one establishment a few day ago, despite protesting that he was, well, reading a book. The Actual Café in Oakland opened last year with laptop-free weekends. The owner, Sal Bednarz, wrote in an email, "I think it's fascinating that we've allowed technology to creep into so much of our lives that it can feel like an affront when someone (like me) asks us to step away from it for a short while." The Los Angeles Times last weekend filed a thoughtful entry on the same topic, looking at California coffeeshops that pulled all the plugs. Dan Drozdenko, the owner of the Downbeat Café in Los Angeles, says, "People come here because we don't offer it. They know they can get their work done and not get distracted." Now, that's something new.
In an earlier piece we described the benefits of disconnecting. For tasks that don't require constant monitoring of live data—such as stock management or minding server operations—productivity seems to soar when the constant bright shiny ball of the internet is nowhere to be seen. People often leave the house or office to free themselves of conditions that stifle productivity, only to walk into a venue that lets them tweet, like, surf, and otherwise avoid focus. Could it be that the offer of single-tasking and contemplation is a selling point when drinking coffee or tea? A moment's respite from the BlackBerry buzz, the iPhone alert, the Android annoyance? only if one remembers to turn off one's 3G connection, too.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/coffeeshops_and_internet
I'd think this would depend highly on the location and nature of the coffee shop. If you're in an area that doesn't have a lot of traffic having a few busy looking customers there for most of the day will help make the coffee shop look full, that can get other people in the door. on the other hand, if you're in a busy location in a large city it makes a lot of sense to want higher turnover since the shop will look full anyway.
Like most things, there probably isn't a meaningful general trend. Try to make your shops policies suit your market and you'll do well. Follow what you believe is the big trend when your market is different and you'll sink.
Any measure that forces people to look up from their screens and into the eyes of their fellow travelers can only be a good thing. I think the actual importance of current technologies to most people's daily existence has been overstated - this has largely been a triumph of marketing over common sense. We have somehow managed thousands of years of evolution without myspace, facebook and twitter (although I happily use them all as a bit of light relief), and life will not stop without them.
If you refuse to comply with the coffee shop employee's directive, will you be considered a trespasser, and have the police called on you? I imagine that would be great for business.
Throw out the tables with seats. Have just a few mushroom-type cup supports instead. That would fix the problem. If people stand up holding coffee, they won't bring their lap tops and stay for eight hours. And it would encourage people having a conversation. Eduscho and Tschibo coffee chains in Europe have done that successfully for years.
A very easy solution to the WiFi problem could very well be for retailers to print codes on the receipts. For instance, buy one coffee buys you 45 minutes of time (or 30 or 60 minutes). Two coffees = 2 hours. Or, they could base the amount of WiFi time based on the amount of money spent on that particular ticket/receipt. The technology most certainly exists to generate the codes and the WiFi software to limit time based on the code printed. Major retailers like Starbucks could afford to do this, while mom and pop coffee shops would probably suffer in this regards.
I have utilized WiFi in several major coffee chains throughout the country and I do believe they throttle speeds when there is an excessive amount of individuals logging on to their WiFi network at once.
There are many ways to limit the use of WiFi, however - unlimited WiFi access for a cup of coffee is not fair to other customers, nor is it profitable for the shops.
I avoid Starbucks because there's a safety issue: you cannot litter the floor with power cables and extension cords in a confined space where customers are carrying hot coffee! If you haven't had almost a liter of hot liquid poured over you, then you likely have been the party that tripped into someone that has.
I completely support cafes turning off the internet, except in cases when I need to use the internet
I'm not sure why regurgitating this old news is relevant again now though. You cornered this 5 years ago. Not much has changed since then.
The local Starbucks in western North Carolina started giving away free WiFi. They are going to start offering their own service this fall giving WiFi customers access to special editions of the Wall Street Journal and other sources.
I often go to Starbucks and other coffee shops and bring my dead tree copy of "The Economist" to read. Should that be banned as well? I don't think so.
I spend countless hours in the internet at my apartment; if I spend more internet hours at coffee houses, Starbucks etc., I will run out of hours in Living, Praying, and Romancing (females). And these tasks are more pleasurable than surfing.
Perhaps a change in business model might be in order. How about "free" coffee, WiFi, comfortable seating, relaxing background music and you pay for the time you are there. You would need to impose a minimum payment to prevent abuse.
a cafe that offers wifi, and doesn't pressure you into buying something every 20 minutes, is one you will want to return to, this above all should be the key business model. large chains can afford to allow this, as i would imagine they make more on take away than those who sit. smaller cafes expect regulars to play chess, read books, and spend longer periods of time - thus the cafe is never empty and attracting those who will make more purchases. here in prague, the majority of cafes ( 80% easily ) offer free wifi, and they are usually full, with only a small percent using laptops (10-20% usually) - like anything, the cafes need to find a balance.
"I can see lots of potential for angry confrontation." quote from Many Horse. And I can see a way to avoid angry confrontations - use common sense and be considerate by not monopolizing a table for hours because of a perceived need to be connected electronically. when someone makes a statement like this, then it essentially proves the point at hand: the compulsion to be connected has skewed perceptions away from an acceptable norm.
"I often go to Starbucks and other coffee shops and bring my dead tree copy of "The Economist" to read. Should that be banned as well? I don't think so." BlueRidgeMan quote
This is a logical fallacy and compares apples and oranges. Unlike the internet, the reader of a hard copy newspaper cannot "chase the rabbit" into multiple sites. At some point, the reader of the newspaper stops reading. Let's be logically consistent here and make sure we uphold the high standard of the site instead of providing nonsensical inflammatory remarks as an emotional "knee-jerk" reaction.
Canadians never talk to each other anyway, so I don't think a wifi ban would change much. We'd just sit there without our laptops, staring out the nearest window.
At least with wifi I have something to do. By the way, I am writing this post in a coffee shop in Toronto called Timothy's. I have been coming here for months and I have never bought anything, not even a single coffee.
The serving staff are angry at me - I can see it in their eyes. However, because of Article 31 of the Canadian Constitution, which bans social interaction with strangers, they have been unable to say anything. They just send resentful looks my way, perhaps fantasizing about what they might do if they weren't so socially inhibited.
Life is sweet here. Later I'm stopping by the book store, where there will be many more people saying nothing to each other. Sundays are extra festive - the number of cat ladies, shut-ins and recluses at these venues can easily double, and the silence is deafening.
Actually I am exaggerating. Canadians do talk if you bump into them. They say "sorry", even if it wasn't their fault. We're a sorry nation indeed.
Our derelicts can be quite loud too. It's odd that in such a quiet society that you find such talkative street people. Maybe they used to be just like us, living with our nose in a newspaper all the time. Then they snapped.
I feel that WI-FI will become more prevelant as economic recovery continues, post-recession plans were for WI-FI cities, not just WI-FI spots.
This makes for a different world. This process is already more advanced further forward in Seatle and we coffee shops are aware of this. If WI-FI is severywhere in libraries, in squares around BT stations, in airports and trainstations. There is reason for the shift by coffee shops.
They rely on footfall, high turnover and most people realise the product in Prett is not so different from the product in Starbucks. Consumers wanting differention might opt for fairtrade, rainforest allaince or organic beans. That is really the only differention. Such consumers might not be the interested in your WI FI.
Dara Bell
Dara Bell
So much hair pulling over every communication technology! Beginning with the ancient Greeks, people have fretted over writing, poetry, the printing press, theatre, newspapers, novels, telegraph, radio, television, and now the Internet. The fact is that people like to communicate: "homo loquens" would have been a better name for our species than "homo sapiens."
In 18th-century London, people also went to coffee shops to get online: rather than free shared WiFi, they had free shared newspapers, the information superhighway of the time.
In the USA, look up from your screen and into the eyes of some greedy psychopath. Not for me!
It is all a question of positioning. Some Cafés will find success as a wireless option, others will be favored by the wired type. Go ahead, please let Cafe`s decide
Let us remember that European Cafés have for centuries been based on their social conversation value, which is reflective of their particular culture.
The European Café experience never caught on in the United States (come on, it's coffee. Its been around for centuries) The American café did catch on because it is fundamentally different. It is a place to loiter solitarily outside of your home. Has the American character changed so much that you can now have Parisian Café's in the middle of Nebraska?
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There are two distinct issues here.
For free wifi which an outlet provides, it's technically possible to limit the duration per device. For example, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur airports both provide free wifi for two hours only. Maybe half an hour is reasonable for a cafe. Maybe an hour. (This tactic may be less effective with customers who have multiple wireless devices.)
Banning customers from making use of their own wireless devices (such as the one that I'm using to post this comment) is rather different. Firstly, unless you literally ban all electronic devices it's hard to see where you draw the line. iPad? iPod? iPhone? Also, what happens if you've bought a coffee before you realize that there restrictions? I can see lots of potential for angry confrontation.