This is one of the reasons I signed up for a coworking space - it is so distracting having to mentally keep track of whether I’m spending the minimum amount. If I have a proper meal at the coffeeshop it easily costs more than one coffee an hour. But then after an hour nobody remembers I bought the big meal so I feel compelled to buy another drink (that I don’t want).
Then there’s a shift change and again I feel I need to prove I’m not a freeloader.
Coffee shops are fine for a change of scenery, but they get expensive fast if you're there all day. I also switched to a coworking space but mainly for these two reasons:
1. It’s much cheaper if you’re regularly working 8-hour days outside your apartment.
2. I hated having to pack up my stuff just to use the bathroom or step out for a call.
The ones near me are secure and have free (passable) coffee, which is all I really need.
I don't usually work from the coffee shops, but when I'm grateful enough to order some coffee (that amount I'd spend it anyway if I were somewhere else). Also coworking spaces are expensive for irregular visitors like me. In my city, even a day pass is 4-5 times the price of a cappuccino. So a couple of days of visit to a cafe is excellent for me.
So turning cafes into coworking spaces? They even use AirBnb as the base example, and we've seen how that's gone for cities around the world. This sounds tragic.
If you want people to just sit and eat - you're a restaurant.
If you want people to just order and leave - you're a food stall/truck.
Cafe's have always been the intermediate. A place to sit and read/discuss/write/work/hang out. While also occasionally going to the counter to buy small food or drinks.
If you're annoyed by this... don't run a cafe.
Simple & sane rules like "you have to order something to sit at a table" are hardly novel.
Even so, the economics may change over time. If the cafe's own expenses are going up, it has a difficult decision to raise prices (and lose business) or try to push through more business (and annoy customers).
I’m now imagining an art installation-tables designed so you can set a cup of coffee on them but any attempt to use a laptop will cause it to continually tip and rock while typing.
We’ve weaponized furniture against the homeless, why not against the laptop class?
The analogy is just that, an analogy. The Airbnb case can be tragic for some cities but for specific reasons that aren't going to affect cafés. I for one haven't seen anyone staying overnight and sleeping in a café.
The project could be catastrophic for cafes for unforeseen reasons, but those are surely not going to be the same as for Airbnb. You'd have to come up with a plausible threat scenario, otherwise your extrapolation of the analogy has no substance.
Not sure if I'd pay EUR 12 for 3 hours wifi, but if it was, say, EUR 12 of store credit that you can draw down on for coffees etc while there (and the store keeps any unused portion) I might do that.
Great then, if people are unhappy with having great coffee and WiFi for virtually the same price as a cowork, I think they can always default to just going to a coworking space and leave his place empty for an actual paying customer in the café.
Why not just have a table charge? I think maybe a red light at your table, which you extinguish for a time by paying money. If the red light is on, then you start getting those dirty looks, and eventually asked to leave. If you buy something you get a 30min credit or something.
This is the routine I perfected for myself as a nomad after a lot of trial and error:
- In the morning, I work at the Airbnb/hotel. I start the day without worries about packing/unpacking or preparations: a solid three to four hours of work. (Requirements: get a room with a workstation and a good chair. Tables are usually easy to find, but if the chair isn’t good enough, buy one.)
- Natural stop to have lunch, usually with a longer walk.
- Start work again around 2 PM at some coffee shop and order a coffee. Another three hours of solid work.
- Natural stop to use the bathroom (always a problem as a solo nomad, but not anymore), stretch my legs, and head to a different coffee shop.
- Final batch of work. Order something light to eat. No more caffeine. Another three hours of solid work.
In the end, I can get between nine and ten hours of solid work per day. I spend around three hours in one place, so I didn’t notice any uncomfortable looks.
I also don’t rely on power outlets or local Wi-Fi never. The laptop needs to last the entire time, but it’s easy because it’s only in the afternoon (around six hours, not the whole day). For Wi-Fi, I always get a good mobile package with unlimited data if possible. This makes it easy to sit anywhere, really.
My setup is usually my laptop, an iPad as a second screen, earbuds, and a mobile phone. It works like a charm.
I try to buy one item an hour at a cafe, coffee or food. Sometimes that means too much caffeine. But I’ve not received any annoyed looks, at least that I’m aware of.
I have considered going the extreme other way and building a faraday cage around a cafe — no wifi, no cellular, just the people who are physically present in the cafe like it used to be.
I personally stopped going to my favourite cafe because all the tables were taken up by people using laptops, I think the value proposition is just not there. You are always going to be better off catering to people who are just dropping in for 5-10 minutes over someone who spends several hours and maybe buys 2 things and jeopardizes a table which could have been used by 10 people.
I know I'm the complete majority here but I kinda don't go to cafes on my own - so the only chance I'm a customer at all (unless with company) is if I have to kill an hour waiting for something when I also have work to do.
It's unfortunate I have to completely stop going to some cafes with a no laptop policy for three times one hour per year.
A much simpler option here (as many cafes near me have done) is simply put a sign up saying "no laptops". If someone is using one you tell them to leave.
> You are always going to be better off catering to people who are just dropping in for 5-10 minutes over someone who spends several hours and maybe buys 2 things and jeopardizes a table which could have been used by 10 people.
I assume there's a balance. Never run a coffee shop but it seems that a lot of the sales are takeout, so exactly what does and doesn't go on in your seating might well be a secondary concern. If you prioritise folks staying for 5-10 minutes you might just end up with a lot of empty tables.
I think both models work. As a cafe you just need to pick one or the other and not try to od both. The laptop cafe model probably works best with a "cover charge" to make up the shortfall.
15 years ago Peet’s Coffee enforced this on me, killing the WiFi after an hour despite the fact that I was the only person in the store. Haven’t been back since.
The best model I’ve seen is to just have some tables marked as “no laptop”.
On the contrary, I spoke with a local coffee shop branch owner who said that squatters are essential to keeping the space lively, popular, and “cool.” This atmosphere draws in passersby and casual visitors, who are the real source of their revenue.
My guess is that coffee shops fall into one of two categories:
1. Those in high foot traffic areas, where a no-laptop policy helps maintain turnover, or
2. Those in low foot traffic areas, where it makes sense to do everything possible to fill seats and cultivate an appealing, vibrant environment.
I would like something in between a cafe, a network cafe, and a coworking space. Ideally, I would like to pay per time for a desk space with an internet connection, and I would like to be able to order food and drinks a la carte.
I got the impression that if the strategy works, the market positioning of cafes will shift from selling coffee and cookies to selling workstations with food perks.
>>The laptop workers using Badge pledge a minimum spend. Badge gets a commission of that minimum spend. Cafe owners get more people and revenue, so they are happy to pay that.
A user books a space using Badge, and promises to spend, and the Cafe owner pays Badge a commission on a pledge. This seems ripe for a disputes process (the customer didn't spend) and Cafe owner actually not being "happy to pay that."
Cafe owner can pay the commission after/if the user spends. Also a user who books a space and skips the spending can be marked in the app so that next time booking can be impossible or hard.
And if the user deliberately or accidentally doesn't spend their money, or if the Cafe doesn't attribute spend to the right user, or even that owner begins to resent the further sliver of profit, there's incentive to game the system. Badge might ask users to upload receipt images for disputes, but that's an expensive business overhead. The problem is based on the problem that cafe staff can't or won't gently enforce the social contract that you pay if you take a table, and the proposed system is that cafe staff are doing exactly the same thing and the owner is paying Badge a commission. Might a user complain to the staff that they were "marked" unfairly? We live in a world where store owners add 3% to credit card transactions because of the loss to the Banks but would they want to return to the days of stores managing their own customer tab/lending?
One more app to replace basic social etiquette and community that seem to be inexorably dissolving thanks to people too preoccupied with their screens.
IMO this is the kind of tech we should be avoiding.
Let's follow the money.
The sales generated for this thing come from somewhere. The idea is the coffee shops make more by forcing "squatters" to order one drink an hour or whatever. That additional money, a portion of it, goes to pay for this app that enforces it.
I think that money is better spent making the coffee better, paying the baristas better, and maybe even allowing customers to "squat".
Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
This seems like exactly a win win for cafes and for people that want to easily find a place to work remotely. Who loses out here otherwise?
> Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
Isn't this what people are doing if they take up a seat in a cafe without buying things? They're making it so the cafe has to charge more to actual customers to survive.
Something that cafe "squatters" don't like to see: they're using a coffee shop as a shared office space, but gratis. The coffee owners tolerate this in exchange for sales, but the most egregious squatters will buy a coffee and let it sit for hours, and maybe go eat somewhere else when they get hungry.
Maybe a simpler solution is what I've seen some coffee shops discretely implement: chairs that are uncomfortable to sit for hours.
It really depends if it’s “rent seeking” - getting money from people occupying seats that would normally be empty (no revenue loss) or if it’s encouraging people to “pay what’s being lost” - the laptop campers are using seats that are causing other people to NOT buy coffee.
If it’s the latter, it’s not really rent seeking as much as trying to enforce an existing social contract.
I've never mot bought a coffee somewhere because there were people using a laptop. If the seats are full I still buy my coffee and go sit on a bench nearby.
It's not cut and dry, someone using a laptop doesn't reduce the spending of others. It's not a formal restaurant where you need the table to make the sale.
> Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
Ever done the napkin maths for a coffee shop? It's not good. Especially with the way rents have been going...
In Canada a ton of Starbucks locations have closed. Other brands too.
You need to sell a ton of $5 coffees to pay rent, nevermind anything else... This idea that businesses are a common good and business owners should feel bad for not being destitute is why fewer people are opening them (at least here, in Canada).
In theory we should "cut intermediates" indeed, but if you read the article, she explains her product: a way to avoid confrontational conversations in coffee-shops, all while ensuring people who are staying a long time are not blocking a table without ordering. This is "orthogonal" to improving the coffee.
If anything this should "displace" (obviously it won't) some of the salary of waiters, who were before tasked to go yell at people with laptops, and now no longer need to do it. So it shouldn't theoretically take from the "money" for better coffee, but rather smooth out the atmosphere in the coffee shops
In my opinion it's already quite unfriendly to have an unpaying customer wasting limited time in your café.
This solution by itself would function like this, but you are leaving out a crucial point that it also doubles as a hub to advertise your café as a place that will welcome you as long as you pay.
The client can know beforehand which cafés are ok with you using it as a cowork space, and cafés make sure they don't have dead space, which in many parts of the world is very expensive.
Those who disagree with the system can always default to just paying for an actual coworking space.
He has a ton of regulars that hang out there all the time, myself included. I spend a lot there, so do they. Often times they are having their real estate sales meetings there, startup discussions, etc (you know, doing business).
They all, including me, known the owner well, we are friends.
Something like this would completely ruin that dynamic. It would push away the customers like me and the others I described that regularly spend a lot there in favor of getting $5 from the "randos".
Amusingly, SF’s planning commission shut down a bustling cafe that did this. The approval was for a cafe not a coworking space. So in the end Workshop Cafe had to shut down and a bustling corner became a blighted empty spot for 5 years.
Ah, but perhaps they were just protecting the neighbors from the noise? Well, it was in the financial district. On the ground floor of a bank, which never had a problem with all this.
Haven't coffee shops since the beginning two hundred years ago been places where people might hang out for a long time without spending much? In the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s? It shouldn't be a problem that people spend time there without spending money, as long as there's plenty of empty tables available, as I see it. And most laptop patrons are conscious to spend some money and not overstay their welcome.
The idea pitched in the article would probably only work with Dutch or central Europeans in general, who unfortunately lack a lot in culture after WWII. Europeans love rules and regulations, and will follow them and take any opportunity to abuse things when there's no explicit rule. Such as overstaying your welcome with your laptop in a café. If this idea with a minimum spend would be pitched in a more mature culture, people would just scoff at it and not visit such a café.
They used to be places for people to meet and socialize, yes, but that means that you generally had multiple people per table, buying multiple drinks, and adding to the lively and social atmosphere. Compare that to laptop users, who are generally taking up a table by themselves and making the place feel like an office. So it is different, not to mention that skyrocketing rents compound the problem.
I've been in cafés in New York that looked like open plan offices because everyone was on a laptop (and there were no free tables), and many cafés in London now have laptop policies so I think the problem is broader than you suggest.
Yep, on a recent vacation to my favorite city, London, we couldn't find a seat for a coffee break because of the laptop users. If they're drinking a beverage and it's packed, we didn't worry so much.
It was before my time, but my idea of these coffee houses was that people would also sit and read a book or newspaper by themselves.
> I've been in cafés in New York that looked like open plan offices because everyone was on a laptop (and there were no free tables), and many cafés in London now have laptop policies so I think the problem is broader than you suggest.
I agree it's bad taste to sit there with your laptop when there's no tables available, and establishments who suffer from this should implement laptop policies. But I've also been many times to cafés which would be completely empty if it wasn't for the people working on their laptops.
Yes customers over-staying, complaining, not spending enough seems to be the problem Cafe owners have. One near me had a threatening sign that "if you're sitting, you need to be sipping" (you're welcome, but not for long). The solution of a printed-flyer to tell specific customers to move on seems like the good idea here, and I would think a cafe owner could print a card which says "we need to pay the bills, you've taken this table for an hour, please come get another drink." or maybe ask two laptop users to share one table. Also noteworthy is the Capital One (ING Direct (USA)) model where laptop users are welcome, but the Capital One Cafes are brand enforcing, not profit making coffee shops. This 2005 Slate article is one of my favorite on the topic: https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/12/my-coffeehouse-nigh...
The first coffeehouses established in Oxford were known as penny universities, as they offered an alternative form of learning to structural academic learning, while still being frequented by the English virtuosi who actively pursued advances in human knowledge. The coffeehouses would charge a penny admission, which would include access to newspapers and conversation.
That's in the 1650s. Then 60 years later in London the coffeehouses were involved in the rise of printed daily newspapers, they distributed them. (Several of these had advertiser in the name, and were more ads than news, because access to adverts in the early days was desirable and worth paying for.)
That's very interesting! A modern equivalent could be the internet cafés, which of course were never social in the same sense, but charged by the hour.
I feel like I'm slighting the Dutch, who to be fair were also a little bit involved in early coffee culture, but they don't seem to get an article on en wiki.
Internet cafes were social once! I remember making an exciting group excursion to one to participate in some kind of debate over IRC. Pffft.
Would love to know which cultures are mature and which aren’t, just so I can keep it in mind when I’m deciding how much I have to push rules and regulations onto users from different cultures.
It's a very delicate issue to put in practice, because as a business you rarely want to price discriminate along cultural lines. But for example, when dealing with customers from some countries, you know that they will demand the best product or service and don't mind paying through the nose for it. While for some other countries they mainly want to pay as little as possible and don't expect much. Americans for example are big spenders and are used to be very well treated by businesses as customers. Europeans live in a mixed economy, where what they spend has little correlation to customer experience. In Europe you can get some great benefits for a low or no price, due to government subsidies or nationalization. You can also be treated like garbage by a company, even though you are a high spending customer.
The easiest way to beat competition in Europe is to just train your staff for a couple of days to be friendly and give nice service. Because nobody else does that.
"A Badge would place a discreet flyer with a QR code: “Planning to stay and work? Great! A minimum spend of €12 every three hours keeps the Wi‑Fi flowing.” Staff could simply point to the flyer—no awkward confrontations, no hard feelings."
If I'm a respectful customer with a laptop and I sit down and some staff comes and does this, I would simply leave. People will go to cafés where they feel welcome.
This article seem to be centered on Dutch culture (Which I have discovered the hard way is one of the most stingy frugal culture you could ever imagine).
The Dutch being frugal is well-documented and well-known [1]. Are you suggesting we should just pretend it is not the case and act as if we all thought exactly the same way? This article is only relevant because it takes place in that exact culture.
My (American) brother in law calls me cheap. Which is what frugal sounds like to me. As a native Dutch I call myself cheaper than the Scottish. When I go out shopping, I will spend hours looking and not buying anything.
I don't think stingy fits the bill per se since that would be saving money at the expense of others. Almost like the coffee shop customers who are not buying anything?
This is one of the reasons I signed up for a coworking space - it is so distracting having to mentally keep track of whether I’m spending the minimum amount. If I have a proper meal at the coffeeshop it easily costs more than one coffee an hour. But then after an hour nobody remembers I bought the big meal so I feel compelled to buy another drink (that I don’t want).
Then there’s a shift change and again I feel I need to prove I’m not a freeloader.
Coffee shops are fine for a change of scenery, but they get expensive fast if you're there all day. I also switched to a coworking space but mainly for these two reasons:
1. It’s much cheaper if you’re regularly working 8-hour days outside your apartment.
2. I hated having to pack up my stuff just to use the bathroom or step out for a call.
The ones near me are secure and have free (passable) coffee, which is all I really need.
I don't usually work from the coffee shops, but when I'm grateful enough to order some coffee (that amount I'd spend it anyway if I were somewhere else). Also coworking spaces are expensive for irregular visitors like me. In my city, even a day pass is 4-5 times the price of a cappuccino. So a couple of days of visit to a cafe is excellent for me.
has an employee ever actually asked you to do this?
It’s the silent resentment from the staff that is most feared.
I have seen a sign saying one coffee per hour minimum. That was at a place people would linger to chat and smoke, though.
The problem shes going to have even if she hits a grand slam on execution is that most sides are generally broke. Thats bad for business.
The WF”H” crowd have money and some will mooch. This minimizes the mooching by such folks.
So turning cafes into coworking spaces? They even use AirBnb as the base example, and we've seen how that's gone for cities around the world. This sounds tragic.
Cafés already are coworking spaces. Much to the annoyance of the cafes. This tackles that.
And they always have been.
If you want people to just sit and eat - you're a restaurant.
If you want people to just order and leave - you're a food stall/truck.
Cafe's have always been the intermediate. A place to sit and read/discuss/write/work/hang out. While also occasionally going to the counter to buy small food or drinks.
If you're annoyed by this... don't run a cafe.
Simple & sane rules like "you have to order something to sit at a table" are hardly novel.
Even so, the economics may change over time. If the cafe's own expenses are going up, it has a difficult decision to raise prices (and lose business) or try to push through more business (and annoy customers).
In HCOL cities, the rents have pushed many coffee shops to incorporate hostile architecture. Especially in San Francisco.
I’m now imagining an art installation-tables designed so you can set a cup of coffee on them but any attempt to use a laptop will cause it to continually tip and rock while typing.
We’ve weaponized furniture against the homeless, why not against the laptop class?
This already sounds like every independent coffee shop I've been to in the continental US.
I want to find the factory that is making small three-legged tables that somehow still easily tip.
I'm at a cafe in NYC right now. Every single person here is on their laptop including me.
The analogy is just that, an analogy. The Airbnb case can be tragic for some cities but for specific reasons that aren't going to affect cafés. I for one haven't seen anyone staying overnight and sleeping in a café.
The project could be catastrophic for cafes for unforeseen reasons, but those are surely not going to be the same as for Airbnb. You'd have to come up with a plausible threat scenario, otherwise your extrapolation of the analogy has no substance.
Not sure if I'd pay EUR 12 for 3 hours wifi, but if it was, say, EUR 12 of store credit that you can draw down on for coffees etc while there (and the store keeps any unused portion) I might do that.
How much do you think you'd have to pay for 3h WiFi in an actual coworking space?
Never worked from one in my life but google tells me £25/day for Regus in my area.
Great then, if people are unhappy with having great coffee and WiFi for virtually the same price as a cowork, I think they can always default to just going to a coworking space and leave his place empty for an actual paying customer in the café.
I think that's the idea if you read the article, the 12 eur is the minimum spend on coffee
>> “Planning to stay and work? Great! A minimum spend of €12 every three hours keeps the Wi‑Fi flowing.”
You might be right. I read that as a minimum spend on wifi originally.
Why not just have a table charge? I think maybe a red light at your table, which you extinguish for a time by paying money. If the red light is on, then you start getting those dirty looks, and eventually asked to leave. If you buy something you get a 30min credit or something.
This is the routine I perfected for myself as a nomad after a lot of trial and error:
- In the morning, I work at the Airbnb/hotel. I start the day without worries about packing/unpacking or preparations: a solid three to four hours of work. (Requirements: get a room with a workstation and a good chair. Tables are usually easy to find, but if the chair isn’t good enough, buy one.)
- Natural stop to have lunch, usually with a longer walk.
- Start work again around 2 PM at some coffee shop and order a coffee. Another three hours of solid work.
- Natural stop to use the bathroom (always a problem as a solo nomad, but not anymore), stretch my legs, and head to a different coffee shop.
- Final batch of work. Order something light to eat. No more caffeine. Another three hours of solid work.
In the end, I can get between nine and ten hours of solid work per day. I spend around three hours in one place, so I didn’t notice any uncomfortable looks.
I also don’t rely on power outlets or local Wi-Fi never. The laptop needs to last the entire time, but it’s easy because it’s only in the afternoon (around six hours, not the whole day). For Wi-Fi, I always get a good mobile package with unlimited data if possible. This makes it easy to sit anywhere, really.
My setup is usually my laptop, an iPad as a second screen, earbuds, and a mobile phone. It works like a charm.
I try to buy one item an hour at a cafe, coffee or food. Sometimes that means too much caffeine. But I’ve not received any annoyed looks, at least that I’m aware of.
One cafe kinda foiled my attempt at that scheme because they were militant that refills were free. Guess I could’ve done espressos or something.
Later i’d just tip heavily up-front.
I try to be respectful, and will pack up and leave if there are only one or two tables left. I also try to be polite and unobtrusive.
But then again I rarely work out at coffee shops or gas stations; usually only when stopping for a drink/meal anyway.
I have considered going the extreme other way and building a faraday cage around a cafe — no wifi, no cellular, just the people who are physically present in the cafe like it used to be.
I personally stopped going to my favourite cafe because all the tables were taken up by people using laptops, I think the value proposition is just not there. You are always going to be better off catering to people who are just dropping in for 5-10 minutes over someone who spends several hours and maybe buys 2 things and jeopardizes a table which could have been used by 10 people.
I know I'm the complete majority here but I kinda don't go to cafes on my own - so the only chance I'm a customer at all (unless with company) is if I have to kill an hour waiting for something when I also have work to do.
It's unfortunate I have to completely stop going to some cafes with a no laptop policy for three times one hour per year.
A much simpler option here (as many cafes near me have done) is simply put a sign up saying "no laptops". If someone is using one you tell them to leave.
> You are always going to be better off catering to people who are just dropping in for 5-10 minutes over someone who spends several hours and maybe buys 2 things and jeopardizes a table which could have been used by 10 people.
I assume there's a balance. Never run a coffee shop but it seems that a lot of the sales are takeout, so exactly what does and doesn't go on in your seating might well be a secondary concern. If you prioritise folks staying for 5-10 minutes you might just end up with a lot of empty tables.
I think both models work. As a cafe you just need to pick one or the other and not try to od both. The laptop cafe model probably works best with a "cover charge" to make up the shortfall.
15 years ago Peet’s Coffee enforced this on me, killing the WiFi after an hour despite the fact that I was the only person in the store. Haven’t been back since.
The best model I’ve seen is to just have some tables marked as “no laptop”.
On the contrary, I spoke with a local coffee shop branch owner who said that squatters are essential to keeping the space lively, popular, and “cool.” This atmosphere draws in passersby and casual visitors, who are the real source of their revenue.
My guess is that coffee shops fall into one of two categories:
1. Those in high foot traffic areas, where a no-laptop policy helps maintain turnover, or
2. Those in low foot traffic areas, where it makes sense to do everything possible to fill seats and cultivate an appealing, vibrant environment.
Also don't forget that in North America a typical retail space in a city is like 2000 sq ft, whereas in Europe it's more like 500 sq ft.
I would like something in between a cafe, a network cafe, and a coworking space. Ideally, I would like to pay per time for a desk space with an internet connection, and I would like to be able to order food and drinks a la carte.
I got the impression that if the strategy works, the market positioning of cafes will shift from selling coffee and cookies to selling workstations with food perks.
Japanese manga kissaten entered the chat ;)
See also cybercafes/internet cafes.
We even had those in the USA for awhile, when computers that could play games cost quite a bit so $5 to play red alert wasn’t a horribly bad option.
The proliferation of laptops means that people are bringing their own workstations.
>>The laptop workers using Badge pledge a minimum spend. Badge gets a commission of that minimum spend. Cafe owners get more people and revenue, so they are happy to pay that.
A user books a space using Badge, and promises to spend, and the Cafe owner pays Badge a commission on a pledge. This seems ripe for a disputes process (the customer didn't spend) and Cafe owner actually not being "happy to pay that."
Cafe owner can pay the commission after/if the user spends. Also a user who books a space and skips the spending can be marked in the app so that next time booking can be impossible or hard.
And if the user deliberately or accidentally doesn't spend their money, or if the Cafe doesn't attribute spend to the right user, or even that owner begins to resent the further sliver of profit, there's incentive to game the system. Badge might ask users to upload receipt images for disputes, but that's an expensive business overhead. The problem is based on the problem that cafe staff can't or won't gently enforce the social contract that you pay if you take a table, and the proposed system is that cafe staff are doing exactly the same thing and the owner is paying Badge a commission. Might a user complain to the staff that they were "marked" unfairly? We live in a world where store owners add 3% to credit card transactions because of the loss to the Banks but would they want to return to the days of stores managing their own customer tab/lending?
One more app to replace basic social etiquette and community that seem to be inexorably dissolving thanks to people too preoccupied with their screens.
Well the issue is that each place has a different etiquette for this. At least this gives a kind of commonly agreed-upon framework
Like a printed sign.
What if we're just not onboard with the premise that campers/squatters need to be pandered to in the first place?
What, and force people to work in rooms (so-called "offices") specifically set up to work in? No.
IMO this is the kind of tech we should be avoiding.
Let's follow the money.
The sales generated for this thing come from somewhere. The idea is the coffee shops make more by forcing "squatters" to order one drink an hour or whatever. That additional money, a portion of it, goes to pay for this app that enforces it.
I think that money is better spent making the coffee better, paying the baristas better, and maybe even allowing customers to "squat".
Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
This seems like exactly a win win for cafes and for people that want to easily find a place to work remotely. Who loses out here otherwise?
> Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
Isn't this what people are doing if they take up a seat in a cafe without buying things? They're making it so the cafe has to charge more to actual customers to survive.
Something that cafe "squatters" don't like to see: they're using a coffee shop as a shared office space, but gratis. The coffee owners tolerate this in exchange for sales, but the most egregious squatters will buy a coffee and let it sit for hours, and maybe go eat somewhere else when they get hungry.
Maybe a simpler solution is what I've seen some coffee shops discretely implement: chairs that are uncomfortable to sit for hours.
It really depends if it’s “rent seeking” - getting money from people occupying seats that would normally be empty (no revenue loss) or if it’s encouraging people to “pay what’s being lost” - the laptop campers are using seats that are causing other people to NOT buy coffee.
If it’s the latter, it’s not really rent seeking as much as trying to enforce an existing social contract.
I've never mot bought a coffee somewhere because there were people using a laptop. If the seats are full I still buy my coffee and go sit on a bench nearby.
It's not cut and dry, someone using a laptop doesn't reduce the spending of others. It's not a formal restaurant where you need the table to make the sale.
> Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.
Ever done the napkin maths for a coffee shop? It's not good. Especially with the way rents have been going...
In Canada a ton of Starbucks locations have closed. Other brands too.
You need to sell a ton of $5 coffees to pay rent, nevermind anything else... This idea that businesses are a common good and business owners should feel bad for not being destitute is why fewer people are opening them (at least here, in Canada).
There are close to 10 cafes within 2 blocks of here. They all charge more than $5 for a cup, sell many other items like food, and are doing very well.
The way to handle the problem you describe is to be thoughtful about the prices you charge.
If it costs you X amount to be profitable, you should be charging Y for your coffee. Not coming up with a cattle prod to sell 2 more cups an hour.
In theory we should "cut intermediates" indeed, but if you read the article, she explains her product: a way to avoid confrontational conversations in coffee-shops, all while ensuring people who are staying a long time are not blocking a table without ordering. This is "orthogonal" to improving the coffee.
If anything this should "displace" (obviously it won't) some of the salary of waiters, who were before tasked to go yell at people with laptops, and now no longer need to do it. So it shouldn't theoretically take from the "money" for better coffee, but rather smooth out the atmosphere in the coffee shops
I get it, I just don't agree.
I would say we should just have the uncomfortable interaction.
Why do we need to pay to make our world less interpersonal?
In my opinion it's already quite unfriendly to have an unpaying customer wasting limited time in your café.
This solution by itself would function like this, but you are leaving out a crucial point that it also doubles as a hub to advertise your café as a place that will welcome you as long as you pay.
The client can know beforehand which cafés are ok with you using it as a cowork space, and cafés make sure they don't have dead space, which in many parts of the world is very expensive.
Those who disagree with the system can always default to just paying for an actual coworking space.
I have the opposite experience.
I am friends with the Cafe owner on my street.
He has a ton of regulars that hang out there all the time, myself included. I spend a lot there, so do they. Often times they are having their real estate sales meetings there, startup discussions, etc (you know, doing business).
They all, including me, known the owner well, we are friends.
Something like this would completely ruin that dynamic. It would push away the customers like me and the others I described that regularly spend a lot there in favor of getting $5 from the "randos".
Amusingly, SF’s planning commission shut down a bustling cafe that did this. The approval was for a cafe not a coworking space. So in the end Workshop Cafe had to shut down and a bustling corner became a blighted empty spot for 5 years.
Ah, but perhaps they were just protecting the neighbors from the noise? Well, it was in the financial district. On the ground floor of a bank, which never had a problem with all this.
Haven't coffee shops since the beginning two hundred years ago been places where people might hang out for a long time without spending much? In the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s? It shouldn't be a problem that people spend time there without spending money, as long as there's plenty of empty tables available, as I see it. And most laptop patrons are conscious to spend some money and not overstay their welcome.
The idea pitched in the article would probably only work with Dutch or central Europeans in general, who unfortunately lack a lot in culture after WWII. Europeans love rules and regulations, and will follow them and take any opportunity to abuse things when there's no explicit rule. Such as overstaying your welcome with your laptop in a café. If this idea with a minimum spend would be pitched in a more mature culture, people would just scoff at it and not visit such a café.
They used to be places for people to meet and socialize, yes, but that means that you generally had multiple people per table, buying multiple drinks, and adding to the lively and social atmosphere. Compare that to laptop users, who are generally taking up a table by themselves and making the place feel like an office. So it is different, not to mention that skyrocketing rents compound the problem.
I've been in cafés in New York that looked like open plan offices because everyone was on a laptop (and there were no free tables), and many cafés in London now have laptop policies so I think the problem is broader than you suggest.
Yep, on a recent vacation to my favorite city, London, we couldn't find a seat for a coffee break because of the laptop users. If they're drinking a beverage and it's packed, we didn't worry so much.
It was before my time, but my idea of these coffee houses was that people would also sit and read a book or newspaper by themselves.
> I've been in cafés in New York that looked like open plan offices because everyone was on a laptop (and there were no free tables), and many cafés in London now have laptop policies so I think the problem is broader than you suggest.
I agree it's bad taste to sit there with your laptop when there's no tables available, and establishments who suffer from this should implement laptop policies. But I've also been many times to cafés which would be completely empty if it wasn't for the people working on their laptops.
Yes customers over-staying, complaining, not spending enough seems to be the problem Cafe owners have. One near me had a threatening sign that "if you're sitting, you need to be sipping" (you're welcome, but not for long). The solution of a printed-flyer to tell specific customers to move on seems like the good idea here, and I would think a cafe owner could print a card which says "we need to pay the bills, you've taken this table for an hour, please come get another drink." or maybe ask two laptop users to share one table. Also noteworthy is the Capital One (ING Direct (USA)) model where laptop users are welcome, but the Capital One Cafes are brand enforcing, not profit making coffee shops. This 2005 Slate article is one of my favorite on the topic: https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/12/my-coffeehouse-nigh...
A more delicate solution would be to keep bothering overstayers with "Would you like another coffee?", "Is there anything else I can bring you?".
A popular restaurant / café near me found the perfect solution. They ban laptops during lunch hours until early afternoon.
Earlier, even. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...
The first coffeehouses established in Oxford were known as penny universities, as they offered an alternative form of learning to structural academic learning, while still being frequented by the English virtuosi who actively pursued advances in human knowledge. The coffeehouses would charge a penny admission, which would include access to newspapers and conversation.
That's in the 1650s. Then 60 years later in London the coffeehouses were involved in the rise of printed daily newspapers, they distributed them. (Several of these had advertiser in the name, and were more ads than news, because access to adverts in the early days was desirable and worth paying for.)
That's very interesting! A modern equivalent could be the internet cafés, which of course were never social in the same sense, but charged by the hour.
I feel like I'm slighting the Dutch, who to be fair were also a little bit involved in early coffee culture, but they don't seem to get an article on en wiki.
Internet cafes were social once! I remember making an exciting group excursion to one to participate in some kind of debate over IRC. Pffft.
Would love to know which cultures are mature and which aren’t, just so I can keep it in mind when I’m deciding how much I have to push rules and regulations onto users from different cultures.
It's a very delicate issue to put in practice, because as a business you rarely want to price discriminate along cultural lines. But for example, when dealing with customers from some countries, you know that they will demand the best product or service and don't mind paying through the nose for it. While for some other countries they mainly want to pay as little as possible and don't expect much. Americans for example are big spenders and are used to be very well treated by businesses as customers. Europeans live in a mixed economy, where what they spend has little correlation to customer experience. In Europe you can get some great benefits for a low or no price, due to government subsidies or nationalization. You can also be treated like garbage by a company, even though you are a high spending customer.
The easiest way to beat competition in Europe is to just train your staff for a couple of days to be friendly and give nice service. Because nobody else does that.
>people would just scoff at it and not visit such a café.
That would be to the benefit of the shop - scaring away non paying customers who are hogging a scarce resource is a good thing, not a bad thing.
But you're also scaring away good customers who would spend money at your café and not overstay their visit.
Why do you think that?
"A Badge would place a discreet flyer with a QR code: “Planning to stay and work? Great! A minimum spend of €12 every three hours keeps the Wi‑Fi flowing.” Staff could simply point to the flyer—no awkward confrontations, no hard feelings."
If I'm a respectful customer with a laptop and I sit down and some staff comes and does this, I would simply leave. People will go to cafés where they feel welcome.
> If this idea with a minimum spend would be pitched in a more mature culture, people would just scoff at it and not visit such a café.
I don't think this would be the negative you're implying it to be. That empty seat would be of much more benefit to the café.
Agreed.
This article seem to be centered on Dutch culture (Which I have discovered the hard way is one of the most stingy frugal culture you could ever imagine).
I see the same problem of coffee shops overcrowded with laptop using "squatters" here in the US, at least in dense urban areas.
At some point we need to realize when generalizations of cultures and peoples becomes problematic and cool it, not add on to it.
The Dutch being frugal is well-documented and well-known [1]. Are you suggesting we should just pretend it is not the case and act as if we all thought exactly the same way? This article is only relevant because it takes place in that exact culture.
[1] https://www.moneyonthemind.org/post/how-the-dutch-handle-mon...
Stingy or frugal? Very different things.
My (American) brother in law calls me cheap. Which is what frugal sounds like to me. As a native Dutch I call myself cheaper than the Scottish. When I go out shopping, I will spend hours looking and not buying anything.
I don't think stingy fits the bill per se since that would be saving money at the expense of others. Almost like the coffee shop customers who are not buying anything?
great app. but whole thing is easily killed with single button filter in Google Maps (if they so decide to add it)
Google Maps once had a useful button called "Local Favorites", presumably based on traffic data from local residents.
Which I doubt they ever will. They rarely launch new revenue models on legacy Google Services, such as maps.
> legacy Google Services
that's like saying gmail or google.com is legacy services
they actually trying. I am getting PMs pinging me about how to monetize Google Maps all the time.
Dystopian.