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Comment by arkh | Hacker News Reader

South Korea is cyber café country. If you open a café there, people expect some specific services.

I guess the fact people come with PCs and printer is a way to demonstrate how they don't want this part of US culture and would like to keep theirs. So either adapt and start offering PC bang in South Korea or go home.

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Starbucks Coffee Korea Co. is a Korean company, owned by a Singaporean wealth fund and a Korean company. US Starbucks provides licensing and supplies, nothing more.

So this is a decision by a Korean company, not an American one.

https://stories.starbucks.com/asia/stories/2021/starbucks-tr...

Or you know, you could just not go there if you don't like the place rather than be a prick to people who work there and customers who like going there.

Hard to do when starbucks is a real estate holding company that sells coffee. They have sucked all the air out of the cafe space and driven out their competitors.

Driven out their competitors where? In Seoul, Twosome Place and Hollys are ubiquitous, there's a few more chains whose names I don't remember off the top of my head and plenty of single-location cafes remain as well.

Is this to the point that no internet cafes exist?

> They have sucked all the air out of the cafe space and driven out their competitors.

How?

By addicting consumers to coffee flavored sugar I suppose?

They had a policy of saturating an area until all the competition closed then withdrawing shops until they were profitable. It was quite common to see two Starbucks across the road from each other.

I couldn't tell you where the nearest Starbucks is in Philly but I can name at least 9 other cafes within a short walk.

I agree, following the logic means any customer from any shop can start doing anything regardless of policies and shops just need to adapt just because of my expectations ?

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