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

[donkey-hokey.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. there's several coffeeshops (locally owned) that I keep a mental list of, where I can get free wifi. When I go, not only do I order something that costs more than a bottle of water, I also leave a generous tip. And I will make sure to get more than one drink. The combination of these seem to keep the baristas happy.

OTOH, I see plenty of people showing up and sitting outside, where it's tougher to track them, and basically leech the free wifi.