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Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

fortune.com

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Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#191

Post by terribleperson »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #31
cm2187 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a business they even want, someone occupying a seat for 8 hours only to consume two coffees?

They'd rather that than an empty seat, especially if that person is turning up 5-6 days/week. Most coffee shops where I live (London, UK, specifically out in West London) are at best 20% full through most of the day, that's a lot of dead real estate not paying for itself. When I tried working out of coffee shops a bit some years ago the "etiquette" seemed to be ~1 drink/hour to pay for your seat. I don't like coffee…

I believe there was an HN article recently about a business that provides a service to cafes to formalize that rent agreement. Spend a certain amount (e.g. 8 euros every 3 hours) or you lose wifi access.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#192

Post by throwaway-blaze »

stockresearcher wrote: post #164
Nifty3929 wrote: post #137

Free, common-use things are awesome - until the tragedy of the commons sets in and ruins it for everybody. This is true of so many things that start free and then later require payment. And everybody gets mad about it.

Chicago has "residential zone parking" for the areas of the city that are primarily residential. For $30 per year per car, you get to park on the street in your local zone (2-3 city blocks). Nobody else is allowed to park on the street in that zone. For visitors, you can buy a sheet of stickers for $1 per sticker that enable 1 day of parking. But you can't buy more than 3 sheets in a month (they keep track). I've alw…

Seattle has this. 2hr parking if you dont have an residential parking zone registration for your car (it's based on license plate).

Surprisingly they charge $190/yr per car for this.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#193

Post by Arnavion »

kzrdude wrote: post #163
samschooler wrote: post #99

There is a photo in the Korea Herald article linked in op's article. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10550038

That must be a tablet made to look like a desktop setup right?

Could be a monitor with a mini PC on the back.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#194

Post by mcculley »

reaperducer wrote: post #147
samschooler wrote: post #99

There is a photo in the Korea Herald article linked in op's article. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10550038

Reminds me a bit of when TPUG in Toronto used to set up entire Commodore PET rigs in coffee shops. For reference, a Commodore PET weighs about 25 pounds, and is the size of a toilet bowl. Double all that if you want to use a floppy disk.

Having used a Commdore PET, I cannot stop laughing at this size comparison.

It reminds of the observation that some people will go to great lengths to avoid the metric system.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#195

Post by pm90 »

dismalaf wrote: post #162
ge96 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wonder if you can bring a tent inside and camp

Homeless people do it all the time in certain cities. And because judges won't jail them for crimes police have stopped trying.

How will jailing them help? Now the public is on the hook for them. Plus, more jails will be needed if you wanna move all the unhoused in there.

Maybe its easier just to build more housing.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#196

Post by pm90 »

xg15 wrote: post #72

At this point I wonder why Starbucks hasn't diversified and started building actual coworking spaces in addition to coffee shops. They look like they should be in an ideal position for that.

Ive seen some coffee shops do this, where part of the space is a “coworking area”.

I imagine it requires a bit more capital investment and knowhow; I get the feeling that franchisees don’t have a lot of freedom.

Some Korean coffee shops should try this though!

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#197

Post by pvtmert »

HSO wrote: post #146
eqvinox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd have to charge people for using those, which people won't be eager to. The point of coffee shops in this regard is that the use as free coworking space is "parasitic" on the space being financed by the café business.

they could integrate it with their loyalty points system, whatever it was called, starbucks card or sth either pay with points, or get a cheaper rate for points, or even get points if you pay normal for the cowirking space the card could also double as a validator, either for the reserved space or as a key card to a closed one, saving on in-store admin work if i were starbucks, i would 100% try this clearly there is…

not trying to be sarcastic but;

> if i were starbucks, i would 100% try this

which is why you _are_ not starbucks

—

imagine the multitude of laws and regulations in multitude of countries, if you offer co-working space, then you must also register as a landlord, handle mails (not the electronic ones, physical mails), business registrations, etc.

there will be people who would want to stay in after-hours, even if the store is not open. obviously they are paying the rent, hence they have the right to do so.

people will reserve tables/seats, what happens if it's over-booked? there are certain "cool" locations which are extremely busy hot-spots meanwhile others are pretty chill...

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#198

Post by pvtmert »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #95
eqvinox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd have to charge people for using those, which people won't be eager to. The point of coffee shops in this regard is that the use as free coworking space is "parasitic" on the space being financed by the café business.

I wonder how often they try large floor plans. Most Starbucks I see try to keep things small. What happens if you make it a bit larger, like a small library? I wonder if the increase in foot traffic and sales would offset the cost of extra real estate. They could keep it free, but also somewhat cross over into coworking.

simply, even cleaning and keeping it tidy is a quadratic equation compared to the space available. people leave their garbage behind or spill their coffee, making a single table somewhat unusable for some time. there are already min. number of employees, mostly busy at the bar. having extra space equals requiring more hands for cleaning, hence cost not linearly increasing but quadratic with the square meter.

another thing is, if the space gets full, people get out anyway, but chance to buy stuff.

for example, let's see there are 2 empty tables right now, you get in to the line, there are 6 people in the queue. imagine 3 of them somewhat occupies the those 2 empty tables, even if you resign the idea of getting coffee, i guarantee you that at least 1 of the other 2 would still get coffee but just move to a nearby park or bench. which starbucks obviously does not pay the rent for...

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#199

Post by mk_stjames »

ViktorRay wrote: post #161
mk_stjames wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>GPT estimates (...) Dude it's middle school math. Average pedal assist e-bike battery, estimate at 500 watt-hours. Electricity prices at my home are about 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. (0.5 kwhr) * (20 cents/kwhr) = 10 cents. With an additional 10-15% due to charging system inefficiencies (lost to heat). 11 cents. It can be good exercise to do an 8th grade level word problem every now and then.

The actual arithmetic is easy but most people don’t know about the batteries in e-bikes. They might not know about the electricity prices at the top of their heads either. You could google those…but it seems easier to just use GPT if you’re going to google that stuff anyway.

Well considering the GPT reported '30 cents' a charge, it is either a. considering 3x larger battery than I would consider average e-bike sized (and I got my 500Wh number based on a 10-second google scan), b. price of electricity it is considering is 3x higher (highly doubt it) or c. it is imagining that modern lithium ion charging efficiencies wall-to-battery are way, way worse than they actually are (possible to hallucinate and integrate into its calculation).

Either way, we don't know, and the original commenter doesn't know either, because they didn't google anything about e-bike battery sizes or their local electricity prices and thus didn't take the opportunity to actually learn something.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#200

Post by pvtmert »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #126
mrtksn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or have actual public places? The Cafe's are there to serve coffee, it's just courtesy as business model to let you hang around in the premises and when the business model starts to fail in some way they adjust it. After university, the most I miss is the actual places that are mine to use and are made for hanging around or working and not necessarily consuming anything.

> After university, the most I miss is the actual places that are mine to use and are made for hanging around or working and not necessarily consuming anything. You just pre-paid for the consumption in your tuition fees.

outside of USA, i do not think that's true,

given the OP nickname is mrtksn, I presume he is a Turkish person. There are many public (ie. govt. funded) universities in Turkey. Except various touristic places in Istanbul, it would also be possible to "hangout" for an hour in many of smaller cities. Obviously this is degrading as the cities are getting more crowded. Although, most shopping malls having food-court with a "public" area. (ie. An area that belongs to none of the food places, but the shopping mall itself) You could just coast there from 10am in the morning until 10pm in the evening, with free-wifi and no drinks.

Similarly, in Europe, some coffee shops kind of span to the street benches or the window-side seating. For the window-side (outside), you may not be able to sit there for an hour or so, but definitely coastable about 30 minutes. (ie waiting for someone). Meanwhile, public areas are always free-for-all, if the WIFI works, then for sure you can coast all day...

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