Some LA Coffee Shops Are Taking Wi-Fi Off the Menu 312
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.'"
right over their heads (Score:1, Insightful)
This is something that I suspect will be lost on about 95% of the slashdot-reading population -- net access isn't necessarily critical to everyone's ability to do their work.
Terminology error? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? :-)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
interesting flip (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
You can stop wi-fi, but you can't stop 3G (Score:5, Insightful)
Odd... (Score:1, Insightful)
How is surfing the internet different from 'just getting work done', as far as shop atmosphere is concerned?
Wirelessless (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they mean "wirelessless". Note wirelessless != wired.
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:1, Insightful)
Bandwidth is cheap
For now... :)
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:5, Insightful)
" 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.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:right over their heads (Score:2, Insightful)
I can understand not requiring internet access to work, but then internet access should be irrelevant. It's only prejudicial if you suffer from ADHD and can't stop refreshing your Facebook status if you do have net access.
Personally, if I don't need net, I just don't use it, I don't have to physically restrain myself from it.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are talking "radius authenticated captive portal integrated with unique one-time-codes generated and printed by the POS system, complete with analytics and so forth", obviously virtually none, unless they just happen to have an unemployed software engineer on staff. Which is why, being a huge chain and all, they'd just contract out the integration project and have the routers shipped to the franchises in "plug in, press 'on'" condition.
Re:"Get their work done and not get distracted" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:2, Insightful)
...but our cantennared friends are also not taking up valuable seating in the cafe and as has been stated previously, bandwidth is cheap
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:3, Insightful)
Safe to say she will be happier with your $1.50 in business taken across the street, freeing up a table.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:1, Insightful)
Wah.
Here is a news flash for you. the Coffee shop is not your office. if you are one of those douchebags that set up camp in a booth then you deserve the risks involved. If the place is so busy that as soon as you get up to get your next coffee that someone takes your spot, Then you are leaching off them. Sorry, but grab another spot, it's not yours, you dont own it. Wah!
as for risking loss, ever heard of a laptop lock cable? oh wait, you have at least 80 pounds of other crap there.
Re:right over their heads (Score:4, Insightful)
If you've ever worked from home in a small city apartment, a coffee shop can seem like a very pleasant place to work. You are right, though... not for the easily distracted.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you somehow think that the free wifi offered by stores is not included in the purchase price?
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:You can stop wi-fi, but you can't stop 3G (Score:2, Insightful)
Makes sense to me. Some pubs in the UK have no music. Makes a nice change to be able to hear the people you're talking to, and not have to shout over the `atmosphere` induced by piping in crap pop/rock music. Ditto for tv (especially sports tv).
Applause (Score:3, Insightful)
I highly applaud this move.
Some nice places were starting to have a similar problem in Washington D.C., so the owners decided to cut WI-FI access off during the weekends. Seating was limited. Some people would come up, set up their lap tops and camp out at a table all day despite seeing that people who bought food had no place to sit. Some of these people would even put their feet up on other chairs and refuse to share their table if asked.
Rude and as some of the owners figured out, bad for business.
I like to go and read a book in public places sometimes, but if I see people not getting seats I pick up and go.
When I got online my surroundings vanish, so I don't see a point in going out somewhere nice to get on the computer. I can do that at home. If I am going to be somewhere nice, I want to be there.
Re:You can stop wi-fi, but you can't stop 3G (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are with your date *turn you WiFi off*...
Re:Because LA sucks for WiFi in general (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that was only a tad judgmental. It really needed to be a lot more judgmental to reach the correct amount.
Seriously, people, it is not acceptable to wander around in public dressed in sleepwear. Your dorm common room, fine, a business, no.
No, it's not an issue of how 'modest' it is, and the joke here is I'm one of the most informal persons I know...I barely own any shirts with buttons on them, and I spend my entire life in a t-shirt plus shorts or blue jeans. But just because an outfit is 'legal' doesn't make it reasonable clothing. If you want to start some new trend, or you're trying to change the types of clothing people think is okay via sheer force of will...whatever, I'm not the clothes polices, and styles change. Perhaps some day in the future we will all wear pajama-style pants.
But failing to put real clothes on is not a 'trend'. And it isn't being 'non-conformist', which I'm sure some people will claim. It's just being a lazy ass. You want to be non-conformist or something, show up in a skirt or with a giant Mayan headdress, don't try to pass laziness off as it.
Likewise, it is not acceptable to just plop yourself down and take over entire areas with books and stuff, unless you're in a library or something. That's just basic courtesy.
Re:Fee Wi-Fi are a drain on the bottom line? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like espresso, except with less caffiene to calm the frayed nerves of internet pedantics.
Re:I can see some advantages to this (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Not buying it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just take the plugs away. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:They just need to treat it like it's a privileg (Score:3, Insightful)
douches who think all businesses are charity operations designed to give them what they want for free that are the problem.
It's like those douche internet slugs who think music is free.
How about some communication (Score:2, Insightful)
"Please limit your time to an hour if you are just browsing the internet, during our peak hours of -----------
Thanks,
Management"
The "atmosphere" of the coffee shop is the atmosphere of mutual communication -- the customers listen too. There is no need for these weird "receipt" codes, or things like that. I'd simply go to Starbucks. I mean, I've refused to go to a coffee shop because they fired a barista I've known for a long time -- if they suddenly said -- "Hey, you're not welcome here, freeloader" -- without a polite explanation, as above -- then there would definitely be backlash.
Just tell them to leave? (Score:2, Insightful)
What do they do about people like me that bring their own modem (and then turn on its router) and use my own UNRESTRICTED network? would they let me sit there all day and nurse a coffee for hours because they dont have have the balls to tell me to leave?
Re:You can stop wi-fi, but you can't stop 3G (Score:3, Insightful)
2 Free hours so that you can sit there occupying a table for 2 hours on 1 cup of coffee? :) OK, let's see how that business survives THAT. 15 minutes is more than enough for a single purchase.