But “hanging out in a coffee shop” while buying little, and honestly even more specifically “going to starbucks to write” are such common activities that they have been the subject of show plots and memes for decades. There’s probably a reasonable argument that this cultural perception of coffee shops drives a certain percentage of business.
I personally don’t find it troublesome to need to buy a coffee if I’m going to hang out at a coffee shop (and I’m not one to do so anyhow), but I’m also skeptical it’s such a widespread problem that they had any reason to do this beyond real-world enshittification.
It does, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a private company to provide that to you. Public spaces should be the responsibility of local government.
Yeah. Nobody expects to be able to walk into McDonald’s and sit at a table all day using wifi without buying anything. Same goes for any restaurant or cafe to be honest, except maybe ones in public libraries or on college campuses.
But, and this may be an important difference, McDonald’s and restaurants aren’t a coffee house that built its rep on the backside of an homage to Viennese coffee houses - see the decor similarities and learn about “suspended coffees” - in the hopes of filling the shop with literati and being just so damned hip that they were their own advertisement. And that worked a treat for it.
And now it’s tearing up its Austrian passport. And now it will be as American as McDonald’s, which has a 20-minute target for table turning.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard the Vienna connection. I thought Starbucks was based on Italian coffee (espresso, cappuccino, latte, macchiato, etc).
But now their coffee has more in common with Dairy Queen than what Italians drink.
I’m not sure how this is dystopian, to be honest. Pretty much any business expects you to actually buy something if you’re using the facilities.
But “hanging out in a coffee shop” while buying little, and honestly even more specifically “going to starbucks to write” are such common activities that they have been the subject of show plots and memes for decades. There’s probably a reasonable argument that this cultural perception of coffee shops drives a certain percentage of business.
I personally don’t find it troublesome to need to buy a coffee if I’m going to hang out at a coffee shop (and I’m not one to do so anyhow), but I’m also skeptical it’s such a widespread problem that they had any reason to do this beyond real-world enshittification.
I agree that people going to a cafe to write is a cliche, but aren’t they typically shown to be buying something while they’re there?
having nowhere to be where im not expected to pay up sounds pretty dystopian to me.
It does, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a private company to provide that to you. Public spaces should be the responsibility of local government.
this is the problem i’m alluding to. private companies have bought everything to the point theres not much left for us anymore.
I mean there are actual public spaces like parks and libraries.
Yeah. Nobody expects to be able to walk into McDonald’s and sit at a table all day using wifi without buying anything. Same goes for any restaurant or cafe to be honest, except maybe ones in public libraries or on college campuses.
But, and this may be an important difference, McDonald’s and restaurants aren’t a coffee house that built its rep on the backside of an homage to Viennese coffee houses - see the decor similarities and learn about “suspended coffees” - in the hopes of filling the shop with literati and being just so damned hip that they were their own advertisement. And that worked a treat for it.
And now it’s tearing up its Austrian passport. And now it will be as American as McDonald’s, which has a 20-minute target for table turning.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard the Vienna connection. I thought Starbucks was based on Italian coffee (espresso, cappuccino, latte, macchiato, etc).
But now their coffee has more in common with Dairy Queen than what Italians drink.