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'We don't want to be an office:' Café owners are pulling the plug on WiFi
When HotBlack Coffee opened in downtown Toronto a year ago, it took a risk few businesses would dare take in today's online-driven world: it turned off the WiFi.
"Every day people come in and ask for it," says Jimson Bienenstock, the café's co-owner.
Still, he hasn't wavered.
"In the short term, it hurt us," Mr. Bienenstock says. "It took us longer to become established, but once we reached critical mass, it has become a self-fulfilling virtuous circle."
While most cafés offer free WiFi, including large chains such as Starbucks, McDonald's and Tim Hortons, HotBlack is among a small but growing number of independent coffee shops choosing to ditch or limit Internet use. By not offering WiFi, they're hoping to create more of a community atmosphere where people talk to each other instead of silently typing on their computers.
If coffeeshops come to discourage people working, perhaps that activity can shift to libraries.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:29AM
Imma shove my HotHand up yo ass manne [theglobeandmail.com]
They want you to be buying and consuming coffee. Preferably more than once. I assume I'm not the only one who drinks their coffee slower when both hands are on a keyboard and focus is elsewhere. The social bullshit is an aside because as others have already stated (and something they definitely know) people can just stick their nose into data. But see both you and them know that when you do this it's eating money. So you might as well just read a book and drink some delicious coffee instead. Them saying this isn't because of business doesn't make it less about business.
What a bunch of hipster shit anyways. The one coffee shop here has a couple of old weirdos staffing it, no wifi and passable coffee. It's also quite representative of most coffee shops I've been to. The ones in Denver while I lived there were bookstores with coffee and with coffee. No one talked to me (and I don't use my phone because there's nothing interesting installed on it) nor did anyone show interest in each other's activities unless they were in a group. Which is fine because that's how humans are. The advent of smartphones and wireless data just make it so we can awkwardly ignore other people's lives slightly less awkwardly than before.
To be honest the people that take pictures of their food annoy me less than a lot of coffeeshop regulars. At least they get secondary fulfillment for their dollars.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿