Will the Google wifi require a login via web browser before given internet access? My phone is always auto-connecting to attwifi but it ends up paralyzing my phone because nothing works until I go to the browser and agree to their terms.
If Starbucks partners with Google it isn't really a play to make the free-loaders more comfortable from an operations standpoint, it is about improving their brand image. Once you know they have faster wifi, it will be one more aspect of the brand that you are drawn to, even if it isn't to use the wifi. It may sound absurd, but I believe this is more of a marketing play than actually improving the customer experience.
"Objectively speaking" about a matter of taste is always improper.
There may be objective qualities that have statistical correlations to people's "good/bad" assessments, but that doesn't stop "good" and "bad" from being subjective.
To me they are like Wendy's. Yeah, not the best, but not bad. I can do better at home or if I know the area... but that's not always the case.
I just wish everyone wouldn't try to taste like Starbucks, now. They can't do it half as well as Starbucks does, so you just get worse everything.
When I travel, I look for Starbucks. It's just the safest bet to know I'm going to get work done that day.
Anyway, I live in NYC and as you said, there are plenty of local coffee shops with awesome coffee (Gregory's, Kaffee 1668, grounded), so I can't complain. But it'd be terrific if Google could support these better coffee shops instead of just following the masses, because they provide a much better experience.
Interestingly, Italians, from what I can tell, are not "coffee snobs" at all. They drink espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, etc... and just expect it to be pretty good, but I've never seen people discuss it much, like you might with wine.
I don't drink the stuff at all, so have no opinion on the quality anywhere.
"Say hello to my little friend", which neatly encapsulates how I feel about stupid web login screens on wifi and exactly how I feel each time this app bypasses them for me:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.syslynx....
aka "Wifi web login". Can be a bit touchy with some but I've not found one yet that it doesn't eventually work on. Once configured, it just transparently sits in the background, at work, or restaurants, or the library, or pretty much anywhere.
I would imagine there exists an iDevice work-alike.
Fortunately, iOS itself is smart enough to notice when your network has a login page like that, and will display that page on-screen automatically so you can click through it. Not as smooth as that Android app (which I'm now jealous of), but at least things don't invisibly fail until you figure out what's going on.
802.11u is supported today on some Android phones, and has been (yes,publicly) announced for iOS 7.
That's the future, sadly - Italy for one requires you to register with your passport or other ID in order to access free wiki. It's an anti terrorism measure. Every hotel you stay at requires you to sign on individually, in a manner connected to you personally, every single time.
Presumably they do. Sure there are arguments against it, but on the pro side: if people are going to spend a day on their laptop, do you want them buying your drinks every X minutes/hours, or do you want them elsewhere?
Also, to your specific point - when people choose restaurants they often go where there's a crowd (the food must be good here), not to an empty restaurant. The situation is a little different because Starbucks is so pervasive, but don't discount the customer draw of a bustling store full of people.
Over the years just kind of casually observing the placement and layout of the stores, it seems that they are maximized to be easy to access by the morning rush crowds as well as the lunch and after work rushes. Also, a pronounced increase in drive-through locations.
I could imagine that the majority of a location's revenue comes from walk-in/out business during peak times, and the tables could stay full with little rotation all day without appreciable impact on revenue, while solidifying the chain as a go-to "third place", especially for the business class.
Any former employees here to chime in?
So they actually don't mind if you come in and order the cheapest cup of coffee they have, camp on a table all day, and keep coming back to the counter for free refills. They just care that you do it often, and that you minimize their credit card fees when you do it.
Of course, if they know you enough, they'll eventually figure it out by looking at your face.
Only store I had a problem was in Nacogdoches, TX -- somehow, they didn't allow refills -- citing some health law disallowing it , so I guess it can vary by store.
The one store I was treated differently (which was a direct operation store) was little surprising to me, but might have been something to do with bizarre laws in their local jurisdiction, in which case they wouldn't have much choice.
It could have been better if they could accommodate me somehow, though...
There are a lot of subtle ways of regulating how long customers stay. In recent years, I've seen Starbucks replace cushy chairs with stools and rigid chairs that most people wouldn't want to spend more than 20 minutes in. I've seen more than a few restaurants block off wall sockets. And music can be effective at dissuading loiterers without them being too aware of it - even innocuous coffeehouse stuff can be fatiguing after so long.
If you remember their business model:
1. Own as many web properties and infrastructure (fiber, etc.) as possible
2. With that, get all the data you can on the user
3. This allows you to build the most precise profiles on users
4. Which in turn leads (besides the benefits for the NSA) to an optimal targeting of their ads (their main cash cow)
5. This leads to the highest margins/cash flow
Google mostly gets from 1 to 5 by getting folks to use its services, not via its infrastructure directly. The infrastructure is primarily there to ensure that folks use the net more overall (and by extension, its services.)
That's not necessarily a bad thing: in return for a service you want to use, you're being shown ads targeted at you. To ensure you consume those services, they're made easy to access.
Starbucks is, from Google's perspective, a major ISP with somewhat poor service that's very concentrated geographically. That last part means it's very cheap to just swoop in and spend the money to solve the problem definitively.
I have no idea if this is actually the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if Google has decided that they're losing $BIGNUM from bad connections at Starbucks, and that it'll only cost $BIGNUM/2 to solve it with brute force.
That may be the case mainly in the past. But with technology evolving, I do think it's tempting to go further and extract valuable data from network traffic as well, which in turn can be used to create an even more precise picture of the user.
If I knew with certainty that every Starbucks had a fast and reliable connection, I'd probably patronize them 50-100% more than I currently do. Hell, I'd be on my way out of this hotel in search of a Starbucks right now if I knew that!