This has been a thing since wifi became free in cafes. In my experience it’s a thing around the world in cafes with dedicated seating. Especially cafes with electrical outlets. I don’t think anything will make it go away. There’s a demand for third spaces that has nowhere else to replace it right now
The magnitude of it is on a different level since 2020. Dialectics quantitative change producing qualitative change yada yada
There have always been people on laptops in cafes but WFH introduced a new and mainstream reason to do it on a large scale. Combined with economic challenges in the coffee industry, it’s a no brainer to rebrand as a workspace instead of a specialty coffee shop
This might be somewhat region dependent. In many cities, if you go in any coffee shop on a weekday, it will have 100% of seats occupied by people on Zoom calls
This has been a thing since wifi became free in cafes. In my experience it’s a thing around the world in cafes with dedicated seating. Especially cafes with electrical outlets. I don’t think anything will make it go away. There’s a demand for third spaces that has nowhere else to replace it right now
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/coffee-shops-limit-wi-fi-to-discourage-laptop-hobos/
The magnitude of it is on a different level since 2020. Dialectics quantitative change producing qualitative change yada yada
There have always been people on laptops in cafes but WFH introduced a new and mainstream reason to do it on a large scale. Combined with economic challenges in the coffee industry, it’s a no brainer to rebrand as a workspace instead of a specialty coffee shop
This might be somewhat region dependent. In many cities, if you go in any coffee shop on a weekday, it will have 100% of seats occupied by people on Zoom calls
it sounds like the cafés need to install call booths and charge half-hourly for those