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Comment by arihant | Hacker News Reader

I dislike coworking spaces. For a solo developer, they offer a lot of distraction. You're stuck in one place which defeats the purpose of getting out of the house for inspiration. For a team, it becomes very hard to create company culture. It feels like you're an empire without a fortress. I'd rent an apartment over a coworking any day for the team.

What I now tend to prefer are other cafes frequented by other designers and developers, or new private member clubs. These clubs offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and you're surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions.

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>> These clubs offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and you're surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions.

Could you elaborate on how cafes frequented by other designers and developers, or even private member clubs, differ from coworking spaces? I'm ignorant and am unclear how coworking spaces would not also offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and not let you be surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions.

It seems like the distractions are the same, just in one locale, the distractions are attractive, while in the other locale, the distractions are not attractive, and I'm not clear why this would be the case.

Because coworking spaces are full of employees of other companies, while working cafes are usually solo people working in super focussed fashion. There's no foosball table. No startup kool-aid. It's the same with private members clubs. Usually it is the founders, investors, lawyers, reasonably successful people in whatever field they work in. The networking opportunity is immense, and it's usually a better atmosphere.

I'm sure a coworking space could maybe screen their candidates and employ a deep work culture. But so far they are focussed on free coffee, big TVs with Playstations, beer on tap and ping pong tables.

Your posts are very black-and-white. Not all coworking spaces are kool-aid-foosball, nor are all cafes filled with successful people just longing to network with you.

Not just that but sounds like a completely different world from my experience. I travel around and work from coworking spaces a lot, I have seen more than ~20 different ones but have never seen any coworking space with a ping pong table, foosball table, big TVs with playstations or a large amount of people working for a specific company.

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