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A Coffeeshop's Weekends Without Wi-Fi

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu May 26, 2005 08:22 PM
from the back-to-basics dept.
Wireless Networking Portables Hardware
Glenn Fleishman writes "Victrola Cafe and Art in Seattle is a popular coffeeshop that offers free Wi-Fi--except on the weekends. In an experiment, the cafe started shutting down its Wi-Fi network on Saturdays and Sundays after watching their culture erode: the shop became full (and was turning away customers) with six-to-eight hour Wi-Fi squatters, many of whom didn't even purchase anything. Their second Sunday without Wi-Fi was one of their best revenue days in some time. I don't propose a Wi-Fi (or free Wi-Fi) backlash, but it's interesting how with some time under their belt, the clash of inward facing technology and outward facing culture hit these particular entrepreneurs' limit."
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  • Their own fault.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by InsideTheAsylum (836659) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:24PM (#12650785)
    Lesse, they don't want to enforce the "buy something or get out" rule? Their loss...

    • Re:Their own fault.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rokzy (687636) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:32PM (#12650830)
      um, what part of "one of their best revenue days" is so hard to understand?

      I think they've done well. an attitude of "buy or get out" would be devastating to any sense of culture. terribly vulgar. not because of the principle, but just the impossibilty of implementing it without leading to bad customer service.

      and weekends aren't so important as weekdays for people to have internet for business purposes, and are much more likely to be kids using it for fun, so it makes sense.

      • Re:Their own fault.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by InsideTheAsylum (836659) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:34PM (#12650848)
        The people who were gonna buy will buy anyways and the people who weren't, won't..

        I'm not saying that you post a bunch of signs on the walls and stuff, but if you see someone squating day after day you come up to them, tap them on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me sir, can you PLEASE SOD OFF YOU WORTHLESS PLACE TAKING PIECE OF SOD?!?!"! Well, ok, maybe not quite like that.
          • I use WiFi, I buy coffee when I am at the coffee shop on the weekend. Lots of coffee and also food. If they do not have WiFi, I leave and go somewhere else. And I'm only going to buy a finite amount of coffee and I am going to buy it where they have WiFi.

            So, a rule like this would screw some "ethical" WiFi users.

              • Re:Their own fault.. (Score:5, Interesting)

                by DarthTaco (687646) on Thursday May 26 2005, @11:10PM (#12651823)
                "I never understood sitting in a coffee shop" It's called the rule of: doing what makes you happy. I don't understand why certain things make certain people happy, but then I don't have to. I just know what makes me happy. And that happens to be coffee shops and book stores. For you it isn't (at least the coffee shop part). It's really not a mystery.

              • dude... (Score:4, Informative)

                by Cryptnotic (154382) * on Friday May 27 2005, @01:50AM (#12652463) Homepage
                I never understood sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop for an hour, much less several.

                It's all about checking out the cute high/college/grad school girls hanging out there doing their reading.

          • Re:Their own fault.. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by iocat (572367) on Thursday May 26 2005, @10:22PM (#12651519) Journal
            If they can now get rid of people who take up space with their irritating, thoughtful, public, journal-writing, we may be able to really get some things done.

            Seriously, though, who ever *wants* to use wifi in a coffee shop? I'd much rather be in my office, using a real keyboard and mouse, or in my house, lounging around on the couch while surfing. I reserve free/pay coffee shop wifi for desperate times -- business trips; times when work is way too hectic an environment, etc. Six or eight hours on a laptop keyboard? I'd be dead.

      • Re:Their own fault.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ScentCone (795499) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:53PM (#12650977)
        an attitude of "buy or get out" would be devastating to any sense of culture

        Um... what culture is that, now? The one where the people who don't buy anything sponge off of the merchant's not free (to them) service? The one that burns up bandwidth that the merchant put there as a value to their customers?

        vulgar

        No, vulgar is using a merchant's services without participating in the implied contract: be our customer. Do those same people feel comfortable showing up there every morning to wash up in the merchant's restrooms, ask for some coffee for free, and then go on their way?

        It's not about whether the merchant would have to get into the awkward mode of policing their users for those that have or have not bought coffee... it's about the people who do buy it pointing out that the leeches are, well, leeches. And extracting a little social pain from them so that they get it, and don't wind up with an even stronger sense of entitlement than they already seem to have.
        • imo you should either offer free wifi or not. making users jump through hoops with passwords and timed purchases is bad.

          this is a coffee shop. they might have just bought an airport express and plugged it in the corner. they probably don't have IT staff.

          so what's wrong with integrating the point of sale system with the wireless access point? nothing, so long as it's as easy as flipping a switch and costs nothing to set up and run.
          • I was at the beach two weeks ago. Found a Starbucks that offered one hour of access for $3 with the password printed on the receipt. Trivially easy to log in. The one hour limit kept my wife from going ballistic we me spending to much time on the net.

            They even managed to sell me some coffee. It was a win-win-win situation.
    • tried to enforce that? IF, as they say, the place had reached capasity, then it would be a sea of people. Are you going to go around insulting peopole who actually purchased something and throw it away when done? Nothing like making your real customers feel like squatters to discourage repeat business. And the real squatters would simply lie and say they did buy something. It NEVER works out as simply as you think.
    • That is the problem but the way the place is laid out. It has hard back chairs (libary style) with hardtop slate tables which each seat between 2-4 people. Reminds me of a restaurant evey time I walk in there. Perfect for studying, but no "community" feeling about it. Can you imagine walking up to another person's table at a restaurant and striking up a conversation? It would be a bit awkward.

      The owners lament about the erosion of culture being the cause is pure BS. Make no mistake, this is simply about $$$$, nothing else.

      Just up the street though is the non-profit Cafe Perkatory [perkatory.org] which is laid out like a living room with soft chairs, nice rug on the floor, and great Wi-Fi. And there is no complaints about erosion of culture there. Almost every time I walk into the place I am gauranteed to strike up a conversation with a new and interesting person.

      However, if Perkatory isn't your "Cup 'O Tea" then you can always try one of the hundreds of other weekend Wi-Fi enabled coffee shops in seattle which are conveinently listed here [wifimug.org].

  • Solution? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xshare (762241) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:24PM (#12650787) Homepage
    Easy Solution: Make people buy something to use wifi, and propose a 2-hour limit, or however much you deem necessary.
    • The problem isn't that wifi users are taking up space without paying for it. The problem is that laptop users are taking up space without contributing to the vibe that the coffee shop is trying to generate.

      Coffee shops are meant to be a highly social place, while the life of the computer addict is a solitary one. It sounds like they were ending up with a shop without energy, silent but for the tappity-tap-clicking of laptops. Even if the sea of laptops was purchasing goods at the same rate as the orig

      • +1 funny? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Shihar (153932)
        "Please. You can't fix social problems with technological solutions."

        "Please. You can't fix social problems with technological solutions."

        Are you joking? I don't even know where to start. Let's start with this. You are at a computer somewhere in the world. If semiconductors were to vanish tomorrow, wherever you are, your government would collapse, the balance of power in the world would be thoroughly shaken from head to foot, and millions, if not billions of people would die within a year.

        Take the s
        • It sounds like they were giving up business when they were running wifi on the weekends. The low-lives were coming in with their gear and taking up space and not buying a damn thing. When you're turning away paying customers because the place is full of sponges due to the wifi, the wifi goes off. "Their second Sunday without Wi-Fi was one of their best revenue days in some time." sums it up nicely.

  • easier solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by killa62 (828317) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:25PM (#12650795)
    An esasier solution would be to just have hourly changing codes to enter that would be given to people who boutght something, that way, squatters would have to buy stuff every hour and therefore not be squatters anymore.

  • Finding a soluable median (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa (265275) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:25PM (#12650797) Journal
    Obviously what they ought to do is give time-limited wifi passkeys that can be "charged" when the customer buys a product. That way they don't get lingerers/squatters who are only there for the wifi without having to pay.

    The higher the receipt, the longer the passkey works. It's a decent system, if not a little burdensome for freeloaders.

    The question becomes, How easily or feasible would it be to put such a system into practice?
    • It's not just about the money. It's about the atmosphere. Nothing kills the mood in a coffee house more than a bunch of people working on their laptops. Maybe during weekday afternoons it's ok, but I think killing WiFi in the evenings and on weekends is a great idea.
        • I think what he means is perfectly clear, at least to me. Especially if you read the article, the point is crystal: "Before Wi-Fi, 'People talked to each other, strangers met each other,' she said. Solitary activities might involve reading and writing, but it was part of the milieu. 'Those people co-existed with people having conversations,' said Strongin." IOW, the atmosphere of people communicating face to face. But what do I know? I sit in a NOC all day staring at a monitor.

          It reminds me of an old joke-
      • It is easier than that. You don't need two and three. The POS device prints a password on the receit. The customer pulls out his laptop and opens a browser-- his MAC is not authorized and he gets redirected to a page that lets him type in his password. He types in the password, and it authorizes his MAC address for a certain amount of time.

  • How rude (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman (238306) * <(akaimbatman) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:26PM (#12650803) Homepage Journal
    In an experiment, the cafe started shutting down its Wi-Fi network on Saturdays and Sundays after watching their culture erode: the shop became full (and was turning away customers) with six-to-eight hour Wi-Fi squatters, many of whom didn't even purchase anything.

    Considering that most people have Internet at home, on campus, or at work, this is just a rude thing to do. Coffee shops provide Wifi so you can relax with a cup of coffee in a comfortable atmosphere while still being able to get that little extra bit of work done. There's no way that's accomplished by squatting in the coffee shop for 8 hours on end. If that's you, get some manners, and get a life.

  • Isn't this yet another syndrom associated with advancing technology? I can understand wanting to sneak in a few minutes of productivity during a quiet moment of opportunity but have always tried being discreet (and discrete). But I've seen the described behavior in a local Chicago coffee shop... squatters who were there at different times of the day as I passed through. Not only did they not really appear to be paying customers, they:

    • monopolized entire tables capable of seating four with: laptop, some analog of an iPod, spare battery(ies), headhphones, and typically paperwork
    • typically were buried in their headphones
    • made no eye contact with anyone

    I have a friend who has a startup refreshment shop, and foot traffic and available space for paying customers is precious. These shop owners aren't making any fortune with their stores, they (at least my friend) do it out of love of the job (interacting with long-time customers, meeting new people, becoming an established figure of the local community).

    I also have another friend who frequents a local Seattle coffee shop a lot. It seems from talking with him he is an honorable patron, but I do get the impression he doesn't interact much with anyone there.

    Cell phones, laptops, pdas, portable music devices... they all have driven a somewhat asocial behavior. In public it's mostly annoying, maybe a little rude, sometimes outright boorish, but in a coffe shop, good for the owners to shut down the wireless on weekends (for example...). Sounds like they made a right move based on the almost immediate response and thanks received from regulars.

    Frankly, the day cell phones and laptops, etc. become totally uncool in public can't come too soon for me. In the meantime (shameless plug) if you're looking for more social ways of using technology consider and look into BookCrossing.com [bookcrossing.com]. It's been mentioned here on slashdot before -- it's a cool way of using technology to share books (something a little less technical, and a lot more social).

  • Now we know what Step 2 is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jhsiao (525216) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:34PM (#12650839)
    1. Give away WiFi

    2. ???? -> Take away WiFi

    3. Profit!

  • Ways to drive the geeks out (Score:5, Funny)

    by tyagiUK (625047) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:36PM (#12650859) Homepage
    There's quite a few ways to get rid of Wi-Fi geeks:

    Firstly, open the curtains, turn on the lights, and turn the aircon up above 20 degrees C. Do this every hour on the hour and the shop will clear to cries of "Nooooo, the Day Star!"

    Alternatively, confuse them by putting herbal sleep powder in the coffee and cola. They'll feel more drowsy, so buy more cola and coffee. Problem solved. Every few purchases, give them one infused with Penguin Mints (for added caffeine)

  • Nobody ever talks there. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by johndierks (784521) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:38PM (#12650874)
    I live just a few block from the Victrola, and they're right. Often times 75%-90% of the people in there have laptops open. Often time I'm guilty myself.

    It used to be a great place were you could go drink a great cup of coffee and probably meet a cute indy chick, but ever since WiFi, everyone is so buried in their iBooks updating their MySpace page [myspace.com] that no one talks to each other.

    The best part is watching the the Seattle Craigslist Missed Connection [craigslist.org] page fill up with "You are a cute 20 that something redhead sitting over there in the corner. Damn I wish you'd close your iBook so I could talk to you." posts.

  • The purpose of the WiFi was (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hawthorne01 (575586) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:40PM (#12650886)
    to attract *paying* customers. Once again, the actions of a few spoil it for everyone else.

    Eventually, some sort of ettiquette will work it's way to the surface, as it has with bulletin boards or email. I make it a point to a) seek out coffee shops with free wifi (www.delocator.net) and buy something as a sign of appreciation for the free connection. Would it kill the freeloaders to buy a small cup of decaf at the very least?

    • wifi'ers are like smokers ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AHumbleOpinion (546848) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:53PM (#12650972) Homepage
      Would it kill the freeloaders to buy a small cup of decaf at the very least?

      That may not be good enough. In Hawaii there was a vote on outlawing smoking in buildings. One restraunt owner being interviewed pointed out that they had already done so voluntarily and it greatly improved business, contrary to the popular wisdom. They pointed out that they had much better table turnover without the smokers, and that the smokers were often only buying a coffee but occupying a table for a long time.

      Yes this is a restraunt not a coffee shop but the point is that wifi'ers, like smokers, occupy a finite resource, table space, disproportionately to their purchase. The wifi'ers can only be tolerated if table space is abundant.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tomwhore (10233) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:40PM (#12650889) Homepage Journal
    We here in Personal Telco Project ( http://www.personaltelco.net/ [personaltelco.net] )country, that being Portland Oregon, have not seen this particular behavior go on. In fact we have seen the exact flip side in most of the cafes we help get nodes into.

    There are several coffe houses who can point to the day the PTP node went in as the day thier revenues went up, noticably.

    There are communities that can point to the day some one put up a neighborhood node to as the day folks started spreading the goodness.

    We have found that when folks put up a Free Wifi Node and all that it can entail (not just internet access but community based local content (web, daap, zeroconf, ftp, distro repositories , etc etc) the community of users are enriched and the people hosting the node are not abused to the point of wanting to turn it off.

    Maybe we are truly in the right place at the right time with the right mix of citizens, who are the riches of any city as b!x will tell you. Im not sure whats cooking up there in Seattle but i hope it gets better.

    -tomhiggins
    www.personaltelco.net

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by eggboard (315140) * on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:43PM (#12650909) Homepage
      When I wrote up this story, I tried to make it clear that Victrola is in a unique position: the majority of coffeeshops have tons of transient business, and many of them see most traffic between 5 and 9 am. They want to fill seats after that. Victrola is more of a community center masquerading as a coffeeshop in the sense that it's a place that community forms, and thus they have a lot of dwell traffic all day. This is quite rare outside of libraries.

  • Will sort itself out (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ortcutt (711694) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:43PM (#12650911)
    This will all sort itself out when every cafe has free WIFI. Then you won't end up with some being busy while others aren't. I frequent a place that has WIFI and that is very laptop-friendly and I can say for sure that they do a lot of business because of it. Even the lingerers spend money because they want coffee and they get hungry and want donuts and bagels.

  • Everyone has an opinion... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey (593501) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:47PM (#12650942) Journal
    It's funny to see how everyone here is an expert in business, marketing, general human psychology, and the like. "Charge for this", "put up signs for that", "only allow this"...it's not that easy.

    There is a fine balance between welcoming people that will eventually turn into customers and attracting hordes of freeloaders, from enforcing a policy that keeps paying customers happy while they surf to appearing to be too harsh like you're running a police state in your store. Let's face it...each restaurant, each cafe, each location in a city has its own unique needs. The Panera Bread that offers free WiFi in a college town may need to have a monitor walk the store and ask abusers of the free WiFi to leave while the Panera in a DC suburb may have mindful users that monitor themselves as they come in, grab lunch, surf, and leave. Timed access codes may work for some places, purchase-required policies may be needed in others, and some may be able to offer it 24/7 without incident.

  • Control excess WiFi access with bandwidth shaping (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bit01 (644603) on Thursday May 26 2005, @08:50PM (#12650962)

    Just set up bandwidth shaping so that each MAC address gradually starts slowing way down after an hour. Slow, not stopped, means they have a chance to finish their work and log off cleanly. They'll get the idea. I've seen this in other contexts; it works well and minimises arguments and overhead.

    ---

    Copyright is a privilege, not a right.

  • blank the power outlets (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spasm (79260) on Thursday May 26 2005, @09:19PM (#12651118) Homepage
    i've noticed that most of the coffeeshops i still like to go to just to drink coffee and hang out with people have limited numbers of people using laptops. i've also noticed that the reason not many people use laptops is the shop has few or no publicly accessible power outlets. ie your laptop use is limited to the life of your battery - the kind of people who want to spend six hours hunched over their laptop are go elsewhere.

    i'm waiting to see how long it takes places drowning in the 'six hour wifi session and one cup of coffee people' to just blank their power outlets off. way less hassle than trying to enforce purchase per hour rules or other annoyances.

    i'm kind of waiting for if you want to use your laptop, you're limited to battery life
  • A few decades ago, some restaurants and bars used to have prominent signs out front announcing that their premises were air-conditioned. Back then, not all places were, so on, say, a scorching July evening in a small town in the Kansas prairie, an air-conditioned bar or restaurant could reasonably expect to have an edge over the non-AC competition. I'm sure many proprietors noticed some of their "customers" lingering for hours over a half-eaten piece of pie or a single beer while they gabbed to their friends, obviously looking for a cheap or free way to escape the unbearable heat outside or in their homes.

    Nowdays, when virtually every place of public accomodation has AC, there are no doubt still people who might nurse a single latte for hours in the local coffee shop to escape an unbearably hot apartment, but they're not going to be numerous enough to be a burden on the system. After all, there are plenty of places with AC they can go to.

    The problem with Wi-Fi moochers is no doubt a real one now, but it will solve itself in time. Although it's not happening fast enough to suit me, the trends are toward free and ubiquitious Wi-Fi. When that day comes, and they're distributed among all of the bars, restaurants, coffee shops and libraries in a a given area, no one will worry about the one or two Wi-Fi moochers in their establishment at a given moment.

  • Every ones talking about 2 hour vouchers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zlib pt (820294) on Thursday May 26 2005, @09:42PM (#12651259)
    but can someone please give a free / simple way of doing that?

    Does anyone know one of those systems that only let ppl surf on the store webpage and to access the rest of the internet you have to put an username/password ?

    I've been looking for this for a long time, but haven't found none

  • Battery power only... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aquarian (134728) on Thursday May 26 2005, @09:42PM (#12651260)
    ...seems to work for most places. Most people's computers only work for 1-2 hours (most batteries aren't in top condition). So unless people bring more than one battery (unlikely for broke WiFi squatters), you can get them to leave by just not providing plugs.

    Stupidly, some coffeehouses have plugs all over the place anyway. Often this is left over from a previous restaurant business, where they had a lamp on every table, etc.

    So if you want people to limit their stay, just limit the electricity!
  • It seems social problems beg for social solutions, and most of the solutions I've seen in the replies are different varities of how to make sure only paying customers get the wifi. That's not a bad idea, but it doesn't solve the problem of a lack of atmopshere. (BTW: rolls of tickets like fairs use come cheap. Don't let numbers be used twice, and lock out a MAC after a few wrong guesses.)

    Anyway, my solution: On the first hit to any page from a new MAC, or on a new token, go to a site for the coffee shop. Have a web-based chat there. Encourage your patrons to use it, post news there, etc. The idea is to get the geeks to come out of their shells for a bit. Try to get the "missed connections" stuff on there, and perhaps the cute girl on the iBook will see it in time.

    And if that doesn't work, well, perhaps turning off the wifi is a good idea.

  • Nooooooo, evil coffee shop! (Score:3, Funny)

    by darthwader (130012) on Thursday May 26 2005, @10:03PM (#12651387) Homepage
    They can't do that. Internet access WANTS to be free. It's evil to force people to pay for something of value.

    The world will be a much better place when everyone gets everything they want for free. These "businesspeople" are just greedy bastards who are trying to opress the masses.

    And what's this with paying for the coffee? I don't have to pay for my coffee at work, so why should I have to pay for the coffee at the coffee shop? Coffee wants to be free, too.

    Anyone who opposes the Open Coffee and Open Wi-Fi movement is clearly a slave of Bill Gates. They must be stopped. Someone should do something about them. Me, I'm too busy looking for free broadband internet access to liberate my mp3s, movies, and software.

  • Damn fine idea! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kimanaw (795600) on Thursday May 26 2005, @10:14PM (#12651462)
    Summer is upon us, Seattle's best time of the year, sunny, warm, and green. If you're so hung up w/ that damn laptop that you can't shut it off, kick back with a tall iced sweet tea, and enjoy the weekend, you shouldn't be allowed to enter the cafe, much less bogart the wifi.

    More power to 'em. In fact, I'd suggest that anyone entering w/ any electronic info device (yes, including cellphones) on the weekend be shown the exit and visited with a hail of derisive boos and laughter.

  • How about a page... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vegaspctech (769513) <vegaspctech@yahoo.com> on Friday May 27 2005, @01:21AM (#12652370) Homepage Journal
    ...with a password prompt and the message 'your server will gladly enter the password for you'? I'd wager that having to interact with the wait staff to get connected would dramatically reduce the number of leeches.

    • Re:Those who fill up their lives with stuff... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ElBuf (887442) on Thursday May 26 2005, @09:54PM (#12651313)
      I don't quite get this.

      Where I live, I actually haven't found any coffee shops that give away WiFi. That's OK, I'm willing to pay on the rare occasions when I need it, and to buy a coffee that I don't really want, and to limit my stay if the place is busy. I figured that made me a pretty good citizen. Turns out I'm also obligated to make friends with everyone?

      Sorry, no offense to anyone, but I don't go there for that; if they didn't have WiFi, I probably wouldn't be there at all. If I was, computer or not, I'd drink my coffee and leave without talking to anyone, unless I ran into someone I knew (and I know and am friends with many people). Some people are extroverts, some aren't. It doesn't have anything to do with stuff.

      Does that somehow limit the ability of others to engage in conversation? Not that I can see, but maybe I'm missing something. If you sell coffee and WiFi, you attract people who need coffee and/or WiFi, and lot of them might not know that they are also supposed to be giving warm fuzzy feelings to the owners and the rest of the clientele.

      ElBuf

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