I think the problem isn't so much that people are using laptops in cafes, but that some people will linger for hours (usually on a laptop, but sometimes not) taking up a seat that could be used by someone else. Maybe a loosely-enforced 1-hour maximum loitering time might help to get more people cycling through?
What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
41–50 of 315 posts
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is called a coworking space ;)
Local coworking haunt (UK) is about £20 per day or more. That equates to about 10 coffees. Or 6 coffees, 1 soup and 1 cake. Which starts to make the cafe more appealing.
If a cafe is making 20 pounds a day per table before VAT, rent and any other expense/tax, they will be out of business.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really, 4G is good now, local wifi is not needed
I'm guessing most people using cafes as workplaces are going to baulk at paying for 4G? It can get really expensive if you're working more than a couple of hours a day.
Not when you have 50gb per month.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#44How common is it for people to do actual, regular, serious work at coffee shops and the like? I've tried a couple of times and I always feel like such a pretentious wanker when I pull out a laptop and start working on stuff, like I'm somehow broadcasting "oh look at me, I work remotely, aren't I special?"
Common
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#45How common is it for people to do actual, regular, serious work at coffee shops and the like? I've tried a couple of times and I always feel like such a pretentious wanker when I pull out a laptop and start working on stuff, like I'm somehow broadcasting "oh look at me, I work remotely, aren't I special?"
It's very common. If you don't have a workplace, and are an independent developer, many people work remotely from coffee places.
If you feel like that, you just have to overcome that feeling. I have no problem doing what is my passion from anywhere. Except if it's too noisy or there's too much people. But then you figure out something else.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#46If I bought a cup of coffee at your shop and sat down, only for you to tell me that laptops are "not allowed," I'd be very unhappy with your store. Anyway, this is why coworking spaces exist.
Your $3 coffee doesn't entitle you to sit there for an hour though. If I was running a cafe, I'd expect that you'd be leaving within 5 to 10 minutes of finishing your coffee. The very few times I've worked in a coffee shop, I've done that myself. It's not a coworking space.
Says who? I would understand it if the cafe place would enforce rules like this. But they would also lose many current customers. Many people just come to a cafe and stare at their phone. Or read a book.
How I see it this is a problem for the providers of the cafe service to solve, not the customers.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really, 4G is good now, local wifi is not needed
I'm guessing most people using cafes as workplaces are going to baulk at paying for 4G? It can get really expensive if you're working more than a couple of hours a day.
I haven't paid-by-the-byte for 4G for about half a decade now. It's unlimited with my reasonably priced monthly contract (about $30USD/mo), from a mainstream provider in the UK (Three), lets me tether and gives me free data when I'm abroad too (I'm in the US and France a few times a year typically). I hope this doesn't sound too let-them-eat-cake, but I'm surprised that anyone with work-on-app-in-a-café-in-a-trendy-city lifestyle wouldn't have a sim plan with unlimited, or at least a very high allowance of, data.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing most people using cafes as workplaces are going to baulk at paying for 4G? It can get really expensive if you're working more than a couple of hours a day.
I haven't paid-by-the-byte for 4G for about half a decade now. It's unlimited with my reasonably priced monthly contract (about $30USD/mo), from a mainstream provider in the UK (Three), lets me tether and gives me free data when I'm abroad too (I'm in the US and France a few times a year typically). I hope this doesn't sound too let-them-eat-cake, but I'm surprised that anyone with work-on-app-in-a-café-in-a-trendy-c…
Yes, I get what you're saying, maybe I just know a lot of tight-fisted people?
I have one colleague who won't answer an email or whatsapp unless she's on free wi-fi somewhere. This is an extreme example but I know others who are not much worse.
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this what you think about other people you see working at coffee shops?
No, and so I don't really believe that's what other people are thinking. But it's how I feel, and it messes with my concentration.
I think it a little. Never really "got" the whole thing I guess. I also wonder why does a supposed "remote worker" (for money, I presume) want to eat (literally) into their profits by spending money constantly at a cafe? My home would have to be a heckhole indeed... Or I'd have to be stricken with a loneliness so gnawing that I had to get out. Otherwise I'm perfectly content to have total control over a pleasant private environment that I'm already paying for!
Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your $3 coffee doesn't entitle you to sit there for an hour though. If I was running a cafe, I'd expect that you'd be leaving within 5 to 10 minutes of finishing your coffee. The very few times I've worked in a coffee shop, I've done that myself. It's not a coworking space.
Says who? I would understand it if the cafe place would enforce rules like this. But they would also lose many current customers. Many people just come to a cafe and stare at their phone. Or read a book. How I see it this is a problem for the providers of the cafe service to solve, not the customers.
I've walked past cafes that have no seats available because they are full of people with laptops, they have lost my business because they don't enforce any rules.