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Comment by andyjohnson0 | Hacker News Reader

Cafés and coffee shops near to where I live [1] are frequently rammed with people on laptops. I'm sure they're mostly diligent in buying drinks every hour or so, but I feel bad for the proprietors - its hard to see how they make much money.

I've seen people with multiple spare laptop batteries along with their bags etc., clearly intent on long-term occupation of their chosen table. Wasn't like this before covid.

The article mentions public libraries, and the branch library near me looks good as a place for maybe getting some work done - albeit with more background noise than I'd like.

[1] Relatively prosperous, professional, urban, northern England

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> I'm sure they're mostly diligent in buying drinks every hour or so

I really doubt it. Even the people who are conscious of this and think of themselves as "one of the good ones" probably don't do this even if they intend to. Is someone who sits in a place for 5-6 hours really going to purchase 6 coffees or lattes at $6+ each? That's a lot of money, but also that's a lot of coffee to drink in a day, and tons of calories if they're the fancier kind of drinks.

I have no doubt that some people do, but I bet it's fewer than many would believe. And places like Starbucks are likely working based off hard data rather than just guesses or feelings.

If the café thought it was ruining their Livelihood, they are more than welcome to implement a policy preventing such thing.

I’ve never understood the desire to work from a coffee shop.

The furniture is usually hard wood and uncomfortable, the table height is not set for working so you’re hunched over your laptop, you don’t control the thermostat so it’s usually too hot or too cold, there’s liquid spills and sticky surfaces and crumbs everywhere, you usually have little space to yourself, there are other people talking and kids, etc., you have no privacy, you can’t get up and stretch your legs (or go to the bathroom) without leaving all your stuff behind or packing it up, etc.

Unless your home is a cardboard box under a bridge it’s probably a better place to work than a coffee shop. What’s the appeal?

If you work from home all the time, the occasional change of scenery can be nice.

Personally I work from cafes only once a week, and only for maybe 90 minutes at a time. I live in an area with a lot of cafes, so I switch it up each week and rotate through them. Some have better coffee, others have a better environment.

Lately the chains like Starbucks and Panera have become absolutely awful. Those are more like your description above. But the independent ones are usually better.

Not sure if it's a geographic/cultural thing but I definitely saw this in multiple east coast US cities pre-COVID, especially in neighborhoods close to universities. I remember this being an issue in some of the nicer areas of where I lived more than a decade ago - if you weren't there by 8am or 90% of the "good tables" (chairs not booths, near a window but not blinding sunlight, near an outlet, not near the door) were taken up by a single person on a laptop.

I saw someone once set up an entire desktop that they hauled in in a giant duffel bag.

Dedication. I would love to know his CS:GO rank.

>I saw someone once set up an entire desktop that they hauled in in a giant duffel bag

Was it Aubrey Plaza? https://youtu.be/EKEeHREK2nQ

Now I want to try this with my Macintosh SE, which is at least more luggable than those desktops.

Haha brilliant

NO this was a real dude not even a prank.

Can't the cafe just charge by the hour, like a co-working space ?

Charging by the month, like Costco, is likely to be a much better strategy. Network effects and all that.

They can, but then that sucks for cafe customers that just want a latte, and don't want to "co-work." It's a problem where a few people are ruining something for the majority. I guess you could do some kind of "first 60 minutes included with purchase of drink" or something, but it all just seems so complicated.

Atlas cafe in San Francisco printed out WiFi logins good for 90 minutes.

Perfect.

So after 90 minutes the co-working crowd switch over to personal hotspots?

If people will bring multiple laptop batteries, they’ll bring unlimited tethering hotspots.

Yeah the issue is getting staff to police that. Staff simply do not care and do not want to ask people to leave, risking an angry refusal.

And for good reason. It puts someone in the position of confrontation with an unhinged person, social media shaming, or accusations of discrimination.

Some coffee shops ban laptop use -- although I haven't seen that around where I live for years, I used to see it in another city some years ago. But perhaps they lose too much business if they do, damned either way. And of course there's still phones now.

Restaurants have a long history of asking people to leave if they occupy a table for too long. Cafes could do the same if they deem it worth it.

Probably ended because now there is risk of being video tapes and sued.

Huh? Sued for what?

I'm a happy capitalist, by that I mean I like my job and enjoy going to work etc etc. I'd love an office tel in my city. They're super common in Korea, and the modern ones include the office for the office workers, an office for you (your "WFH" office) and your house and coffee shops and stuff. I'm not sure I'd live in the exact same building my office was HQ'd in, but if I could live in the one next to it, that would be cool. (I'm sure I',m in the minority of those who likes this idea tho, ha)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officetel

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