The ethical coffee shop freelancer

Wow, the article supposes _much_ more time is 'bought' than I do.

My rule of thumb is if I'm finished consuming my purchases (consumed at a 'reasonable' rate), I can stay as long as the coffee shop has at least one other free table.

I hack at a coffee shop with some frequency, and have built a sufficient rapport with the staff that I feel I can get honest answers out of a few of them.

Starbucks aims to be the "third place". Home, Work, Starbucks. That's what _they_ want, they want to be inviting, they want to have good wifi, new stores should have very convenient power. So it's not like they didn't plan on this happening. But they do have numbers to meet.

- They do complain about people who buy a small coffee then site for five hours. (so keep buying)

- They seem less concerned with what you're buying, more concerned with you doing it with some frequency (unless it's the cheapest thing on the menu)

- If you have a loyalty card, your free refill appear the same to them as if you bought something, so don't feel bad there.

- They hate people who shout into skype, listen to music through speakers, or take over multiple seats (just as much as you do)

- Leave 10 minutes before closing.

- Tip.

I think there's also work that cafés can do to better manage their space. I look at patrons in two camps: campers and drinkers.

Campers show up laptop and stay for a long time. Drinkers want to come in, buy a coffee, sit down and drink it, maybe with a friend, then leave.

Having seating targeted at both groups helps them make effective use of the space. My old starbucks had nice bar-style seating facing a window. Narrow ledge big enough for a paperback and a coffee, not big enough for a laptop. This fit in a lot of patrons per square foot (compared to a full table & chair). "Campers" could fill up appropriate seating, then "drinkers" could show up and still see great seats for themselves. Drinkers who came early often saw the nice seats by the window and filled up there first, leaving more tables for campers.

My current coffee shop only has seating that works for campers. So the place can fill up with the laptop crowd, a drinker can walk in then walk back out. Or it can fill up with Drinkers, and lose campers the same way.

I see a lot of suggestions to tip heavily to counter the cost of sitting down for a while to work at a local coffee shop. I don't think this solves the problem at hand.

I run a food business as a side job. Don't get me wrong, I love my employees. They deserve getting handsome tips. I tip well whenever I go out. I don't have a problem with the idea of tipping.

However, as the owner, I don't get to touch those tips my employees receive (and rightfully so). I'm also the one that has to pay the rent, the internet bill, and the power bill...not my employees. Nor does tipping absolve me of the need to pay my employees their wages.

When you are using power, wifi, and/or a seat at a business, you're using something that the owner is offering in exchange for you ordering something to consume. It's not something that your barista or cook or waitstaff is offering to you, like your drink or food you ordered. It's not something that the tip will pay for in any way. The only way to offset that cost is to keep buying something periodically, even if it's a small drink off the menu. Really, even the longest camper isn't using up much of anything, but it's numbers that make a problem and really add up over the course of, say, a month.

tl;dr Buy something to eat or drink periodically on top of tipping generously. They are two separate issues.

I think this also varies based on how busy/crowded the coffee shop is. I don't feel too guilty camping when half the tables are empty, but there are many downtown coffee places that are near capacity most of the time.

At any rate, I'm enough of a coffee fiend that I get a new beverage every hour or two anyway. :)

I think my dream would be to own a hacker-friendly coffeeshop as my own office. I would run a nice coffee place with fast wifi, lots of power outlets, and big tables, serving coffee, snacks, and simple meals. Maybe also sell some accessories like batteries, stationery, spare chargers, earbuds, etc.

There would be a full office in the back for me and my team to work together in. It'd be the place to meet when we needed to collaborate, but otherwise we'd be free to come out and work in the public area. The coffeeshop needs to make just enough money to run the whole company (the shop itself plus minimum living expenses for the non-coffeeshop employees). That would give us the freedom to work on whatever projects we want at our own pace.

We'd run community events like hackathons, game jams, lan parties, etc. Basically try to build up a public place where people would love to come work and maybe meet others to collaborate with. If the coffee isn't paying the bills, maybe we could charge a membership fee for powerusers, or maybe operate at a loss, if I have a sufficiently successful project that can pay for it.

This is really about the lack of good shared hacker/working spaces. The nearest one is miles from where I live, not convenient to get to via public transportation and expensive. Meanwhile, Starbucks is a short walk down the street for $1.50 per cup of drip coffee. The demand is there, but the supply isn't. Starbucks fills that niche.

I liked the article as it recognizes that you can't just freeload on space. One thing I would suggest that you consider is the idea of karma. As a writer there are a lot of people that want to use your writing without paying, and in many ways they probably can. You can engage in a type of "paying it forward" particularly if you are working at a locally owned coffee shop. It will be hard to create hard rules- a lot of it is going to be karma.

In Russia we have a new type of coffee shops:

    drinks and cookies are free
    you pay for you time, 0.03$ per minute

We've got around 300 of these new "free spaces" opened in 2012.

Ziferblat (http://clockfacer.ru/) has opened 9 locations and is growing like crazy. A new Starbucks in the making.

Here's the rule: Buy a drink when you walk in. Then don't worry about it as long as tables are free. Because you're not displacing any customers. Once you glance around and notice the place is getting kinda crowded, walk up and buy another drink if yours is empty. That way you're not costing them any business.

I've often thought about this as well, but I don't really want to keep buying drinks and snacks and load up on the calories. (And I can only drink so many low-calorie plain coffees without shaking...) There should be a way of paying shops for my use of the table space. Then everybody is happy and I don't gain weight. Maybe that would break the "folksy ambiance" for their other customers, though...

I hack at a local coffeeshop about once a week. My favorite place has an in-house special that's a cup and refill for $2. Since I drink too much coffee I take them up on that about every couple of hours. 4 hours = 8 12oz cups for $8. But I always buy a pastry or bagel when I start which is another $3.50. Also...I tip them. I make sure they know that I'm tipping as to not get "the glare" and so for my 4 hours and $11.50 I'll tip about $5. It's also because I know it's a business and I'm taking up space. $16.50 gets me a great spot to code and wifi that isn't my house with the kids running around

I think that the tipping is what's overlooked. Unless your barista owns the place, they just want tables available for other people and to make some money...that's the point of a job right? So tip them, let them know you're tipping because you appreciate the use of the their space and that's that.

For me also I take into consideration how much the server has to do for me. For instance if they give free refills and have to come around to my table for it, or even just stand behind the bar and refill when I come up, I will leave an additional tip for them

Last time we discussed this topic, our own tptacek made a good argument for using your local library instead of defaulting to the coffee shop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3607784

My gauge is:

   - If I'm there at meal time, I order a meal (8-12-18-22h).
   - If I stick around in between meal time, I buy a higher-end coffee (>4$) in between.

For every purchase, give max(15%, 1$) in tip.

I think this is worth figuring out for your local shop. But Starbucks!? Perhaps I'm the only one who doesn't think our top priority should be having more empathy for a billion dollar company.

The local coffee shop I frequent encourages the regulars to stay as long as they want, no "drink minimum" or anything. Having lots of people sitting around is good for business. They've gone out of their way to put in power outlets and benches/tables. There's even one out on the deck we can use if we want.

They keep the music kinda loud also to encourage a lively atmosphere. It has a real community feel to it. I can trace probably 80% of the money I've made in the last eight years to connections I've made here.

There's a Starbucks in NYC where there's often a guy with a Mac laptop wrapped in newspaper and a line of empty drinks on his table and beside the window. I wonder how much he spends per year and how much time he spends at that Starbucks. Then I want to see what he's working on and how much Starbucks money he could have used for an actual office (though I doubt he wants one).

Baristas and coffee shop owners use plenty of free services on the web, so let's just think of it as a symbiotic relationship.

One strong drink is enough for me, so I just tip 100% at the local place where I regularly camp -- whether I'm camping or picking up a drink. If your coffee shop is near a university, bring your regular barista something nice, some food, etc. during finals. He or she is probably pulling doubles. This is coming up soon...

My simple rules when working from coffee shops: 1. Don't take up space when the place is full (when the place is empty they should like to have you in) 2. Order reasonably - not just one coffee for 2 hours. Get at least 3 items for a few hours session, preferably also food 3. Be nice and over generous with tips

Can someone explain to me why you prefer working in a crowded, noisy cafe rather than in the comfort of your own home/the park/some other comfortable venue?

Whenever I went to Starbucks, the chairs were barely comfortable enough to sit on for ten minutes, there's no way I could sit there for hours.

Here in Amsterdam, NL the CoffeeCompany stores allow up to one hour of WiFi access per receipt. So you get a drink, the receipt contains a wifi password that will last you one hour. Need more? Get another drink.

...or grab a receipt someone left at your table. I've seen this happen.

I think your estimates are about right and you've just earned yourself a free hour by writing a thoughtful post.