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Comment by m348e912 | Hacker News Reader

If you're going to work from a coffee shop, you need to buy something. Co-working spaces are pretty expensive so even a daily 6-dollar latte is a better deal compared to some co-working facility fees.

Anyway, I'm afraid that curbing internet won't be a complete solution since it's easy enough to tether off a phone or connect to an Xfinity hotspot.

A potential solution to this problem would be to make useable power outlets scarce. Some laptops can last a full day without a charge, but you'll find that most people will need to plug in at some point if they're working for extended periods of time. Not a perfect solution since it can be thwarted by external battery power banks.

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It's not just about buying things. These places aren't selling workspaces, they're selling drinks, often to people in their immediate community and often with a goal of being part of the community.

So if the community can't get a table, they stop coming at all, and that's a bigger existential threat to the owners than just the money.

> The problem became so severe that the bar began to lose its regulars. Esten and his wife would bump into former customers around the neighbourhood and they told him that they could never get a seat at the bar because there were laptops everywhere, so they started going to other coffee shops instead.

> “That was breaking our hearts,” he said.

These people don't want to babysit tech workers. Even if it's financially sustainable to do, that's not what they opened a small coffee shop or bar to do.

Don’t most coffee shops sell to the “immediate community?” I don’t think many people travel long distances for coffee.

Maybe I’m just a miserable misanthrope, but despite all the rhetoric I’ve never had a “community” experience at a coffee shop. In my experience it’s just cash for drinks and a place to sit. I’ve had much better experiences getting to know people in explicitly non-commercial settings (dog parks, playgrounds, classes, etc.)

The idea of a coffee shop being a place where people mingled comes from centuries past. Wikipedia has a decent article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...

> even a daily 6-dollar latte is a better deal compared to some co-working facility fees

If you’re buying one six-dollar latte and sticking around for a few hours, you’re abusing the cafe’s hospitality.

Is it too much to expect the local authority to recognize this new trend and provide the appropriate facilities, just like we have parks where we can go to relax or exercise?

They do, it’s called the library.

Something more devilish is having unergonomic furniture for office work, a seat that's too hard or too high relative to the table, lighting that's more likely to create glare on a screen, etc.

Making your coffee shop an uncomfortable place to be seems like a great way of discouraging the majority of your customers from returning.

Low tables and lounge-style chairs are comfortable but they can't reach anywhere near the density of the standard arrangement.

I've sat on chairs that are comfortable for only a few minutes, then start to get increasingly uncomfortable the longer I sit in them. That's more of what I meant.

I understand what you mean, I was saying that having to use such seating is likely to result in customers not returning to your coffee shop.

That might be ok if you're a tiny shop that only really wants to do takeaway but to me, most coffee shops are a place to relax and have a conversation with someone. A chair that becomes uncomfortable after a few minutes is in direct contradiction to that purpose and indicates either hubris or ignorance on the part of the owner.

Adjust AC to an uncomfortable temperature and playing music louder than usual should drive away some who would sit all day.

I would not want to sit there and enjoy my coffee in peace. I would take my dollar to another location.

Also sounds like a rather unpleasant place to be employee.

This is already Starbucks

With a Thinkpad T series, you can also just swap your external battery.

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