Starbucks pulling plug on laptop users?
Starbucks is well-known for coffee, but laptop users love their juice — electrical juice.
After 4 days and only 3 Cafe Americanos, the Starbucks manager had a bad feeling about this guy.
Now, a rumor is floating amongst the Interwebs that New York City Starbucks locations are replacing electrical sockets with blank faceplates, effectively pulling the plug on laptop (ab)users plagued with poor battery performance.
The Seattle-based caffeine pusher did not immediately return a request for comment.
I can see the need to DC AC hogs, but I know a lot of folks, including some of my favorite reporters I never see anymore, use Starbucks as a transient office.
Starbucks Gossip provides the following jolt:
If you are one of those people who uses Starbucks as their office, sits in a store for 8+ hours a day, putting all your files on a table, using a separate chair for your laptop case/ suitcase enjoying unlimited free refills with your Starbucks card, asking for cups of water and refuse to to move until you are good and ready all for the $1.85 you pay as “rent,” then perhaps your actions will answer your questions [about covering the outlets].
An AJC reporter who shall remain nameless tells me she recently lost her connection after 30 minutes at another local coffee shop, so it looks likes Starbucks is not alone in trying to prevent prolonged PC parking.
Starbucks seems to go out of their way to be friendly, so this is a perilous PR path, if true. After all, we can get coffee and electricity at work, if it comes to that.
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211 comments Add your comment
Ron H.
August 5th, 2011
8:45 am
Power to the People,
$2 cup of coffee in 6 hours? LOL. You probably burnt up a buck or two of electricity (depending on your laptop) per hour…
free stuff
August 5th, 2011
8:45 am
I want more free stuff from starbucks and the government. I shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Techmom
August 5th, 2011
8:46 am
I’ve had to resort to sitting at McDonald’s or Starbuck’s on the couple occasions my power/internet were out for hours at home (I work from home). And I’ve purposely stopped at a McDonald’s or Starbucks while we were traveling to check some work messages. I have an iPhone and can usually find what I need online that way but there are occasions when I have to sign on the VPN to get to what I need. But I’ve probably done that a handful of times in the 8 years I’ve worked from home. And I I always buy something while I’m there.
I think they could print a wifi code and a bar code on each cup that then becomes active for 60 minutes after it’s been scanned. Want another 60 minutes? Buy another cup of something (or go sit outside in your car where you’re still close enough to get wifi without sucking up power or using their space).
Traci
August 5th, 2011
8:47 am
Seize the Day! Create a business where people can do this – “hang around” get business done. Or perhaps their is a mini-charger a Starbucks can sell.
Am I the only who sees $$ in this? Our do you just wanna complain about it?
JohnF
August 5th, 2011
8:47 am
Good for Starbucks..hope my local coffee shop in Brookhaven does the same thing. Most of the people taking up space in coffee shops with their electronics are losers and posers. If you have that much to do on a laptop, go home!
AJS
August 5th, 2011
8:47 am
Good for Starbucks. IF I stop by, it is for a cup of much needed coffee, and to check e-mails, and respond accordinly, check and update my outlook, that statement-”Starbucks seems to go out of their way to be friendly, so this is a perilous PR path, if true. After all, we can get coffee and electricity at work, if it comes to that.” – says it all, if you need to do that much work, it should be done at the office, or home, or hotel room, it’s too bad, but more of the same, the few ruin it for the many
Rebecca
August 5th, 2011
8:49 am
While I am not normally a Starbuck’s couch potato, I did use their WIFI for a 3 hour class that I could not miss while traveling to a funeral. So though I do not agree with the folks who are living at a table all day, I would like the availability even if I was paying a connection fee.
Often if I am traveling, Starbucks is the only place I know I can check in with job and family. But I can always go ‘old school’ and use a pay phone- if any still exist!
thedudebythething
August 5th, 2011
8:54 am
I have never seen the point in sitting in Starbucks (or any place for that matter) long enough to need a power supply. If you are in with a group and your surfing the Net, that’s one thing, but to go in so you can “work”? Thats just stupid. Work from home, or for that matter, get a broadband wifi card and work from the park…but get out of Starbucks….
Patrick
August 5th, 2011
8:57 am
If you “home” workers need an office for meetings, etc. there are always those SOHO shops that have a conference room FOR RENT.
And Power to the People, that $2 cup of coffee still makes you a freeloader when you are using many times that in “freebies.”
I Love Life Cereal
August 5th, 2011
8:59 am
“After all, we can get coffee and electricity at work, if it comes to that.”
That statement is not technically correct.
You cannot get Starbucks-quality coffee at work.
Once again, a few losers with no consideration are ruining a good thing for the rest of us. (Internet freeloaders)