Curfews for laptops are starting to creep into coffeehouses in New York City, the hub of the coffee culture. No laptops are allowed between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekends, exceptions are if the customer is eating and typing at the same time. Translation, you better buy more and not just sip a coffee worth 2.00 and sponge off free Wi-Fi all day you deadbeat. Coffees-shops are claiming that laptop users are taking up valuable real estate at rush hour leaving no place for the lunch crowd to sit and munch away. These tiny little dives don’t have enough room to accommodate the non-laptop individuals. Wi-Fi lured customers in and later found out that they were just mooching time and space, and not filling the coffers to compensate for broadband and electric juice for the precious laptops. The geek squad is now being relegated outside with the smokers. They will find other places to tap away in their isolated little worlds void of human contact in the invisible cubicles they put around themselves in coffee houses. Is this the beginning of a national movement?
See also:
The Plug is Being Pulled on Laptop Use in Some Coffee Shops
Would Vancouver Coffee Shops Ever Pull The Free WiFi Plug?
WSJ Says Cafe Owners Suppressing Laptop Users
“They Sit for Hours and Don’t Spend Much; Getting the Bum’s Rush in the Big Apple”