It took me 3 years to figure out coffee shop wifi isn't free wifi

I've been bouncing around hostels and cafes for 4 years, thinking I was being slick using their internet to upload client files. I never bought more than a $2 coffee every 3 hours to save money. This month, I was at a cafe in Chiang Mai uploading a 4GB render, and the barista came over and said I needed to buy a $12 day pass for the wifi. I laughed, thinking she was joking, but she just pointed to a sign I'd missed for years. Turns out, every place I'd been to had a similar rule; I'd just been lucky nobody enforced it before. Now I'm realizing I probably owe like $200 in lost drink sales across 6 countries. Anyone else realize they've been accidentally freeloading somewhere for too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesf2625d ago

Respectfully gonna push back here - most coffee shops I've been to are happy to let customers use the wifi as long as you buy something, and a $2 coffee every few hours seems like a fair trade to me.

danielw8825d ago

My local shop in Portland has a sign that says 45 minute limit on wifi if you only buy one drink. I actually timed it once and they kicked me off at 47 minutes. But the thing nobody talks about is how much these shops rely on people who actually treat it like an office space... the regulars who buy pastries, lunch, multiple drinks over 4 or 5 hours. That $2 coffee every few hours sounds fair but most people I see camped out with laptops are nursing one cup for 3 hours. The shops near me started putting outlet covers on half the tables to discourage the all-day crowd. I get both sides honestly but the math doesn't work for the small shops when someone takes up a table for $2.