Should Starbucks ban laptops?
In my local Starbucks, there's a bald man who wears the same pristine white Prince tennis shoes every day. He is always perched on a stool, his PC open in front of him, typing away with the middle finger of each hand. He has one of those Bluetooth thingies in his ear and he's often talking as he's typing. This somewhat peculiar gentleman is, indeed, running his business from Starbucks.
One might wonder whether he's just getting the slightly better end of this deal. I have never seen him eat there. Perhaps he orders one or two coffees. Which seems to indicate that he is renting business premises for around 7 dollars a day.
Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, some coffee shop owners have decided to fight back against the laptop squatting fraternity.
The post cites the example of Naidre's, a coffee shop in Park Slope, in Brooklyn, that limits the hours in which patrons can ogle their laptops without, well, eating. You cannot just be typing and sipping between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekends.
A sign in Naidre's expresses the owner's emotions on the subject very clearly: "Dear customers, we are absolutely thrilled that you like us so much that you want to spend the day...but people gotta eat, and to eat they gotta sit."
Some coffee shop owners in New York even cover up electric outlets, so that the enterprising, the impoverished students, the merely very lonely or the merely very brazen cannot boot up, sip java, and take up valuable table space all day.
Which leads one to wonder just how painful it would be if Starbucks took their lead and banned laptops throughout its vast network.
There are a couple of coffee shops in San Francisco, for example--and I won't name them only because I don't want to encourage crowds--where there is silence because everyone is engrossed in their laptops. You can walk into these places and 30 or 40 pairs of eyes are illuminated by screen lighting. There is no conversation, not even recognition of other human life forms. Perhaps the most bizarre sight is a table for four, with four dedicated souls ignoring each other and having eyes only for their homework, gossip sites, or IM.
Is it possible that if Starbucks covered up its outlets, customers might find an outlet in each other? And, in finding an outlet with each other, might people stay longer, eat more, and drink more?
I think a scientific experiment is in order, don't you?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
They could also kill wi-fi during peak hours but leave it running mornings and afternoons.
I used to hang in Starbucks when I didn't have a job. Only for about an hour to read the paper, check email, and sip a vanilla latté. Then Peet's Coffee opened at the other end of town, and I never returned to Starbucks. When I am forced to drink Starbucks now, it tastes quite bitter to me, while low on flavor. Wake up people! A cup of Peet's - or Coffee Bean & Tea or just about any local mom-and-pop coffee house will beat Starbuck's anytime. As for the loss of free WiFi at Starbucks... While I think WiFi should ultimately be free everywhere, I don't think it is Starbuck's responsibility to provide it. They get absolutely zero for their return-on-investment.
The internet cafe is an American tradition. These people just need to get over it...
Starbucks will always have a herd of sheep every day lined up at the door to buy over priced coffee... seats or no seats.
and assuming that you lose no one because there are no places to sit is also ill founded. i...and i suspect you...have opted for another eating/drinking establishment countless times because the one you went to was too crowded. sometimes people wait...sure. a lot of times people dont...especially for coffee where you can go somewhere else. if i want to sit down with a friend, i'm not going into a packed starbucks and waiting until cheap ass gets up. i'm going to another coffee shop.
I may have one or two squatters a day that I've never seen before... but I can honestly say that over 90% of squatters I ever saw were loyal customers that I saw day in and day out... consistently. They may only buy 3 cups of coffee a day, but they are there 7 days a week... they buy pastries every so often... they bring family and friends that also buy coffee and food... they have business meetings that require coffee.
More often than not squatters are regular customers that may not pour that much money into the business but they earn something through loyalty and bringing other business.
And personally, if I want a cup of coffee... and I go through the trouble of going to Starbucks and I walk in the door and all the tables are taken... I'm NOT going to then turn around and leave and drive to another store to buy coffee... I'm just going to get a cup and leave and hope that there will be a table next time.
If I walk into a Starbucks and there is no one sitting - all seats empty - I would thinking that there is somethng wrong or maybe they don't have wifi. Crowd brings in crowd. We are essentially social animals and no matter how much we like our personal distances, we still like going to places where there are other people around.
If you can't figure it out there's a little button on your keyboard that says "caps lock"... and to even make it easier for you, when it is indeed engaged there's typically a little green light on the key to tell you "hey, turn this feature off... it only annoys people."
Doesn`t Starbucks charge for their wifi ? Isn't that an even better deal than coffee: you serve thin air and still charge a bundle for it ?
Starbucks and similar places have done a fantastic marketing job convincing people that coffee is worth its weight in gold. It seems to appeal to the "snob factor" in people or the desire to be "cultured". At any rate, "squatters" isn't the correct term. If a business offers free wi-fi to attract customers and customers then take full advantage of it, that's fair. If the business doesn't want to offer it, then it doesn't have to offer it. If the business wants to place limits then it can place limits. But don't offer unlimited wi-fi and then blame the customers for using it.
BTW, those so-called "squatters" paying $7 could easily pay for home internet service and make their own coffee much, much cheaper. Most probably do have internet. They obviously enjoy the experience/atmosphere of their favorite coffee shop to spend that amount of time and money.
Why else would anyone go to starbucks? For the mediocre food and overpriced coffee?
I think it's a reasonable expectation that if you're going to use wifi in a store, you should be a patron of the store, i.e., actually purchase stuff there. And sure, there are people who are jerks and just leech. But the vast majority of people camping out on wifi are indeed actually spending money at these stores, and as some Starbucks employees here pointed out, most customers aren't actually sitting around with their coffee anyway.
I understand the premise of this opinion piece, but if you restate it as, "You'll make more money if you drive away a subset of your customers!" you'll wonder if perhaps there isn't a logic flaw there. The Panera in Millbrae (in the SF Bay area) has steadily been getting more passive-aggressive about wifi users, removing outlets for laptop users and having their wifi router routinely reset every half-hour so you keep having to log in. Before they did that, it wasn't uncommon for me to go in there and drop $5 on an overpriced coffee and pastry for a couple hours, and not infrequently another $5-10 on actual food if I was there longer. Now, I don't do that; they've made it pretty clear I'm not welcome there. If my presence at a table for a few hours is really a net loss for them -- that is, if the restaurant was otherwise completely full, with nobody able to find a table, and customers who would have otherwise stopped there didn't because they couldn't get a seat -- this makes good business sense. But I'm betting the manager of that Panera really didn't run the numbers to see if it made sense or not; he was just thinking, "Those laptop users are sitting at tables too long, darnit."
This article is ridiculous and you honestly have nothing to write about that is actually worthwhile? Maybe you should get off your lazy butt and talk to these people that are trying to make a living or get through school. You actually might help them get clients or a job by networking with them. In this economy and all of the unemployment, people and restaurants should be there for people. The only thing that I agree with is that if they are taking up a table for a few hours or the whole day and it gets busy, they should order coffee and lunch. This is the responsibility of the place to let them know that they need to order food or drink or get out. To shut the internet or cover the outlets for the people that do spend money there is wrong.
I was laid off as a VP of Engineering in December and I am trying to get a consulting business off the ground so my family doesn?t lose our house and can eat. I can?t afford an office, so I go to Panera every day from 9am until 6pm and I order coffee and lunch (sometimes breakfast). I average about $10/day and if I had an office I would spend about $10/month at Panera. When the store is slow between 10am-12am and from 2pm-5pm, most of the people in the place are laptop users and most do spend money. Why should groups of people be allowed to sit at a table for multiple hours, order coffee, no lunch, and talk, but the people on laptops are a problem?
Pick on people that are actually hurting the economy and not the people that are trying to make a living and feed their families and stop thinking that you are better than the people using laptops at Starbucks and other coffee houses. You can wait 3 minutes for a table until another customer gets up. I know Panera is doing very good business and us laptop users are probably doing our part to help them profit.
Thank you for your incredibly helpful insight Chris!
I view people on laptops as a problem because they take up much more space. They don't just have the laptop out, they've got cords and cables, mice and disks, USB dooderhickies strewn all around them. Feet up on another chair, the calories from that horrid mess-in-a-cup piling onto their waistlines. Ugh!!
It's nice to see you don't generalize or judge people.
Poor baby that when you go to a restaurant at lunchtime you have to wait 5 minutes for a table. When i was employed and went to lunch between noon and 1:30pm I would normally wait 15 minutes to be seated at a sit down place and did I cry like you, nope.
I don't work at home because I have three small children that will not allow me to get any serious work done at home. I would also have to eat something, so I would spend about half of that amount on food anyways, so I am spending about $100 extra/month than I would at home. I am easily paying my share in that place.
Because I have "dooderhickies" (never heard that word before), I should be banned from sitting there, but the kids that come in to talk and not order anything or the old people (sorry, but I am in Florida) that come in every day to drink coffee and talk for hours is OK. People do not get back in there car and drive to another place to eat if they have to wait a few minutes for a table, so the places are still getting the business. The laptop people generate a lot of revenue from the restaurants as they spend their money there almost every day, even during slow days and times.
The main issue is that if someone sits there and buys food or drink, then the company would be horrible business people to throw them out. One store would shut the wireless off when it was very crowded and some babies cried that they couldn't find a table instantaneously and I told the manager that I bought coffee for $2 in the morning and I will spend $6+ somewhere else to eat and I will come back to use a table in the afternoon. I am sure that a few of us did the same thing. So to appease a few whiners, they lost good money for the days they did that and potentially loyal customers.
Thank you all for helping me with your wonderful advice on my finances and eating habits. I wish you insightful people were there my whole life, then I would be filthy rich and have a rock solid body.
It's a little unfair to head into a cafe that offers wifi, be it free or paid, and not purchase a food item or a beverage. And IMO it's just plain rude to not only not buy something from the cafe whose table one is using, but to bring in some competitor's food/beverage into the bargain. Come on. The least we can do if we're going to use several hours' worth of the place's resources is make a flippin' purchase there.
(Ironically, I like pretty much all of Starbucks's offerings *except* their coffee, so if it's their wifi I'm using, I'll get some other item from their menu instead. Goodness knows there's plenty to choose from.)
As for this article, what is the point of a coffee shop if you cannot sit and just read a book, type on a laptop or wait for someone to notice you so you can take them home for a quick fling?
But if they want to get those leeches out of their stores, then simple market forces will show the wisdom of this strategy. If sales stay the same, or improve, then seems like they made the right move for their business.
I am an international student from the Netherlands.
The first time my parents came visit me, we went to Starbucks in LA.. And the very first thing they said, "what are all those people doing with their laptops and not ordering anything?"
I think it is really disturbing if people are sitting around me, talking with them self while I try to enjoy my coffee..
Why doesn't Starbucks just kick them out? If you wanna stay their for several hours, at least have the respect to buy a cup of coffee and say good morning or evening to the waitress and the person next to you...
I also think that Starbucks doesn't have to cover or remove the outlets, they just need to grow some balls and say to the customer: "Sorry sir, you are sitting here for an hour already.. please order something or let other customers enjoy your seat".
And as stated by others, people in Starbucks don't actually get the WiFi for free. They either pay, or use a maximum 2 hours a day as part of the Starbucks loyalty card scheme. You get nothing for nothing. I don't know where this idea came from that you can sit in Starbucks all day using free WiFi.
- by CommanderLogjam August 8, 2009 12:12 PM PDT
- Maybe they could have their network password protected. Then they could give away passwords that are good for a set amount of time with a purchase. They could give more time to larger purchases. The TOU would have to make it to where PWs are non transferable.
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- by servermaker August 8, 2009 1:35 PM PDT
- Peet's already does this where I live --- the password comes printed on the receipt and is good for an hour
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- by lordmorgul August 8, 2009 6:26 PM PDT
- I love Peet's coffee, and they do have a good system going. Normally they will give you a replacement password for the wifi if the store is not busy, you don't have to buy something, but if its busy they might ask you to. Unlike Starbucks, it is actually free wifi and limited in time. If Starbucks tried the same limits with the AT&T hotspot you're already paying for... I'd never show up to buy coffee again.
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- by drhamad August 10, 2009 8:13 AM PDT
- sbux does theoretically limit people to 2 hours (I think), except AT&T (broadband) and iPhone customers. I've never seen it actually cut me off though.
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- by drhamad August 10, 2009 8:14 AM PDT
- sbux does theoretically limit people to 2 hours (I think), except AT&T (broadband) and iPhone customers. I've never seen it actually cut me off though.
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- by dennisl59 August 11, 2009 5:02 AM PDT
- Agreed.
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Showing 1 of 5 pages (154 Comments)Then they could coin the phrase "Do you want a password with that?" :-)
Also: since when are you paying for AT&T hotspots in starbucks, lordmorgul? It's free as long as you use an sbux card, which is just silly to not. They aren't having problems with paying AT&T customers, they're having problems with free moochers.
Also: Peets has free wifi? The one in coolidge corner never did that I was aware of?