Coffee shops taking free wifi off the menu

[thewayne]

I have no problem with this. The issue is that people are going in, buying one $2 cup of coffee, and spending the day there on their laptop. It's turning off other customers, it's hurting revenue for the coffee shop. I've used coffee shop wifi before, but I'll order more than a $2 cup, I don't freeload. The article mentions some jerk who brings in a DESKTOP COMPUTER and hogs a table all day!

I don't have the link, but the Slashdot thread had some great suggestions, such as your receipt prints a voucher code for 30/60 minutes of free wifi (apparently some Burger Kings do this), but I can see that might be difficult to integrate for smaller operations.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cafe-wifi-20100808,0,1079612,full.story

Comments

[silveradept]

This is both interesting and disappointing. How many of those permanent campers know they could just trek down to the library and set up there - the bandwidth might not be the greatest, and the seating may not be the best, but you won't get the stink-eye for being there the whole time. (You will, however, be unceremoniously herded outside at closing time.)