We’ve weaponized furniture against the homeless, why not against the laptop class?
If you want people to just sit and eat - you're a restaurant.
If you want people to just order and leave - you're a food stall/truck.
Cafe's have always been the intermediate. A place to sit and read/discuss/write/work/hang out. While also occasionally going to the counter to buy small food or drinks.
If you're annoyed by this... don't run a cafe.
Simple & sane rules like "you have to order something to sit at a table" are hardly novel.
The project could be catastrophic for cafes for unforeseen reasons, but those are surely not going to be the same as for Airbnb. You'd have to come up with a plausible threat scenario, otherwise your extrapolation of the analogy has no substance.