Prepare to pay for power in public places
A new 'smart' power outlet developed by Sony raises the prospect of coffee shops, airports and other public places charging people for charging devices.
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Comments
boy you think they'd get home internet
End the free WiFi. A purchased product comes with a password that allows 20 minutes of WiFi use. The barista notes the table and end-time. The customer must leave or purchase more time. When properly enforced the moochers will disappear. The turn-over of paying customers will more than offset business lost when the abuser never returns.
Don't charge them for the electricity. Charge them for their "sitting Time" anything over let say 30 min. is billable at $5 / Hr!
I can't believe it has taken this long for coffee shops to do this. I have long wondered how the places stay in business with so many of their "customers" buying one measly cup of coffee and then sit there for hours taking up valuable space.
let me see if I clarify for those that are seeming to miss the point - your squatting is taking up valuable space that a restaurant owner needs to support their business. You are not wanted or welcome to just hang out. Time and Spacer are money and you are wasting both.
A local bagel place we USED to go to for work lunches eventually fell off the list. Why? Lots of folks in there with their laptops, textbooks or whatever. They buy a small coffee/soda and then sit there for hours for the free wifi and power. Other folks come in for lunch/whatever and there's no place to sit.
Common sense says that eventually companies would figure this out and do something about it. When you have groups of 4-6 in a lunch group who now go somewhere else because they'd like.... More
Went to a Starbucks in Southampton, NY...with two colleagues, for a business lunch. We were buying sandwiches, coffee and wanted to save time by working while eating.....nowhere to sit...six tables that could seat four persons each were used by single person, papers spread out, laptops plugged in, one had a cup of small coffee on his table, the others..nothing...using Starbucks like it's their own private study...Go to a Library fellas!!!! I've been to Starbucks in Greenwich where the.... More
As if they didn't overcharge for their coffee; $2.50 for a large cup of something that takes $0.50 to make? And now they want to overcharge for charge? How about a sitting fee? Or a breathing fee? Or a 'for the hell-of-it' fee?
It's a private business, their space, and their power. If they choose to charge for it, that's their option. People who do not like this can go elsewhere. Businesses who are willing to cater to freeloaders are welcome to do so.
Then don't go. Can they tell their landlord to not charge rent? This is a free country, you don't have to buy their overpriced coffee (I don't). But that 50 cent coffee comes with labor, rent, taxes, workers comp, etc... Or are you not smart enough to understand how business works. They have a right to make money and run their business as they see fit. You wouldn't go to a restaurant and stay there all day if you only order 1 appetizer, would you? And electricity isn't free so they do.... More
So they should supply free space to anyone that wants to hang out? Hmm, go business model.
Simple solution - charge patrons a cup of coffee for every half hour of internet use and limit it to one hour.
It's not really the electricity, it is really taking up the space...
A business needs turnover of customers, and allowing people to hang out and not continue to pay for a product or service essentially prevents another customer from buying the product or service
Think of people who hang out and talk after they are done with dinner at a restaurant. If they stayed for 3-4 hours after that would prevent the restaurant from seating 3-4 additional paying patrons.
Very few people stay for 3-4 hours in a restaurant. Even fewer do it without buying something (often high-margin items like drinks). Unfortunately, it's become the norm to have to stand when you go to a coffee shop to buy coffee because all the tables and stools are occupied by selfish people who use the purchase of a single cup of coffee to justify making that coffee shop their office for hours on end.
A better article would have estimated the electricity charge of using a laptop for 2-3 hours at a coffee shop.
One website suggests that using a computer 2 hours a day and 5 days a week costs just $5.50 a YEAR.
So. If I am not hogging a table and buying an overpriced latte, the 2 or 3 CENTS I use in electricity should easily be handled by the business.
If I am spending perhaps $20 or more dollars a week and using just a measly 10 cents of electricity, that is a good.... More
Actually, you spending $20 in exchange for occupying, say, 1/10 of their space for hours on end is NOT a good deal for the business. They want to be rid of you. You're filling up space that a paying customer could use. I've skipped visiting coffee shops because there's nowhere to sit -- just tables full of laptops and empty coffee cups.
Let's say someone goes to a coffee shop every day, buying one cup of coffee ($4). 10 cents of power would be 16 kwh, using the US average of 12 cents.... More
its the fact that you take up valuable space in the business for hours on end. Buy your coffee and stay for 20 minutes to drink it and work. If you want to stay longer keep buying, think about all the money you save by not having to lease office space to work in. Now you're going to complain that this business doesn't want a low value customer sitting there all day preventing the turnover it needs to continue growing profits?
I thought I had seen backpacks with solar panels built in you can use for charging.
Soon we will be charged for breathing at certain places.
Would you pay or would you look for another place to plug in? I've wondered about this cost to businesses as I see more and more people plugged in all types of places.
Don't you think they factor their electricity costs into the price of the coffee? The outlet is a new revenue stream on top of already paying for the electricity when you buy the coffee.
They are using the same technique of accusing people of "hogging" resources as the cell companies are using to create tiered bandwith plans by accusing their users of "hogging" bandwith.
The resource they're hogging is space. They spend a few dollars on a cup of coffee, then act as if that purchase entitles them to occupy a substantial percentage of the business's space for hours on end. Remember, coffee shops are generally small; it only takes a few people with laptops to fill up most of them.
It sucks, but I don't think a 3 dollar coffee really covers the cost of someone sitting at a table charging their lap top and running wireless for 4-5 hours. A business has the right to charge for their electricity use, it's only been in the last 8 or so years that mobile technology has taken off like it has... if I were a business owner I would not want a bunch of people charging up while they sipped their cheap products.
