I am willing to bet that removing free WiFi actually reduces monthly revenue.
> I am willing to bet that removing free WiFi actually reduces monthly revenue.
"That's why Whalen decided there'd be no more screens. It was a gradual move. She started by shutting down the Wi-Fi two years ago. Then, the cafe banned screens during lunch."
"A lot of people were disappointed," Whalen says. "But we actually saw our sales increase."
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/04/10/300...
I think you owe someone a coffee.
You didn't make your customers more social, you ejected your introverted customers and banished them back to their homes. If you do that and stay in business, then it's tautologically true that 100% of your remaining customers are extroverts.
You aren't strengthening the human community, you're kicking its more vulnerable members out of public space and making them even more isolated. That's your right as a business owner, but the pompously self-righteous moralizing tone is uncalled for.
Most people on laptops/wifi pay $2-3 for a house drip and camp out for hours.
A cafe doesn't owe you work space.
I used to rotate between various coffee shops. Many of those were independent. Starbucks was corporate evil coffeeshop where I rarely bought anything but camped out for hours.
The problem was Starbucks was the most welcoming. In some of independent coffeeshops, owners or managers would hint indirectly that I needed to buy something or they hate people on laptops.
Eventually, I would go to Starbucks by default unless I had enough money to get something more than a coffee. Hey gotta support independent coffeeshops.
Here is the funny thing now I am professional who loves coffeeshops. Starbucks is my default option still. I don't work from Starbuck anymore but easily spend about $150 there a month.
(It is kind of sad because I am sure there are independent coffeeshops that would have tolerate broke students but then those are probably near campuses and students graduate and new broke students move in. So they will never get customers for life if they are not a chain.)
That's an extremely poor value proposition and I've been working to eliminate this particularly egregious form of waste from my budget. If all I want is coffee, I can make it myself.
The whole point is getting to spend some time in a pleasant place other than your home. Certainly some people can take "some time" too far, but I have no reason to be a customer at all if I'm expected to leave immediately.
In addition to that, if you're there to work, chances are you're there by yourself. However other customers may come in groups, and that table can be used by the group. By taking over the table and having that group pass the shop for another place where they can drink/eat+talk, you're costing the shop a lot of customers.
Also you get a standard quality of coffee which you can rely on. If you do it yourself, quality can vary and you might make good coffee some times but other times you will make terrible coffee.
It depends but for some people it might be a good value proposition. The time savings and consistent quality could be more valuable then couple of bucks for coffee twice a day.
And honestly at least in NYC none of the coffee shops near work are pleasant. They either have people that hog the tables or are just super loud because they're having meetings or blowing off steam. The ones near my home are nice though, I go read there.
The cost would be more than just camping out in a cafe, but I think people might be willing to pay more to feel like they're not leeching and get a more tailored service, ie reliable wifi, power, printing etc.