Generally speaking, people like to go into coffee shops or restaurants that already have people sitting in them. So long as the place isn’t packed, you’re actually doing them a favor by sitting there.
Yes, because honestly a person on a laptop nursing a drink is just the sort of ambience that brings in the crowds.
I pretty much only eat at a fast food place if I’m working. If I’m working I have a work truck with me. If I can not sit somewhere I can not see my truck from I will not go in at all. So if I drive into the parking lot and see the window seats are taken I move on to the next place.
Amongst contractors this is not that unusual.
The profit is more like 300% – for about 30 seconds worth (literally) of labor cost.
No it’s not. The markup may be 300%, but it’s mathematically impossible for the profit to be more than 100%. They’d have to somehow earn more than the customer paid.
That’s some pretty spiffy accounting skills you’ve got there.
I really don’t see the point of this pitting. The wifi is just good enough for you to repeatedly patronize the establishment, and is offered as a complimentary service, like the pretzels or popcorn in a bar. If you don’t like the quality, start paying for it, like an internet cafe where they specifically want your custom.
Because sometimes the wi-fi isn’t “just good enough.” From personal experience, it feels a bit like bait-and-switch when you had multiple choices for your meal or drink and you chose the cafe/restaurant with the “we have wi-fi!” sign on the door, only to find out after you ordered that the wi-fi doesn’t work for some reason. :smack: Wi-fi is complimentary, yes, but when a bar/cafe/restaurant puts a “free wi-fi here” sign in the window, it’s meant to draw in customers, to be a point of distinction from the establishment next door or across the street that may cause some customers to choose you over them.
Sometimes the food sucks too, but you don’t know that until after you put it in your mouth. In a perfect world every restauranteur would be an IT professional and deliver a Gbit pipe right to your device and the food would be served by a plethora of supermodels.
You get what you pay for and if your depending on a food service place for your connection you are either desperate or an idiot. If they are charging you for your online time, that’s a different animal.
When you eat in a restaurant or drink in a cafe, “what you pay for” isn’t just the food or drink items listed on the bill/receipt, it’s the entire dining experience. I can cook a meal for myself or make a cup of coffee for myself, at home. I’m paying extra in the restaurant because it, figuratively and literally, brings more to the table than that. (And the places that bring less to the table generally charge less.)
I don’t pay (by your narrow definition of a food item enumerated on my tab) for a table that doesn’t tip over and spill my meal to the floor when I lean on the table for a moment, but I wouldn’t shrug my shoulders and chalk it up to being complimentary if it happens. :rolleyes:
The cafe owner has a solution to customer wi-fi disappointment: don’t advertise it to lure customers in. :smack: Those who find it anyway will be pleasantly surprised. 
That is true, but that comes back to the point I made earlier in that the wi-fi is usually “just good enough”, typically for things like browsing and checking email.
Second, you are the one “narrowing” my words by assuming I solely meant the food bill. Your point is valid but your example is a strawman.
As far as advertising goes, they are perfectly within their rights to advertise so long as they aren’t being deceptive.
I’ll attempt to make my point clearer; don’t expect to get unlimited, secure high speed internet on free wifi, especially in restaurants where the primary function of the staff is to get food and beverage on your table, hopefully, in a professional and cheerful manner. What they are not is your tech support.
And now the airports, which in my experience for years have had free, easy to connect to wifi, are partnering with something called “Boingo” which is a miserable miserable thing that wants me to watch a video and hijacks my shit and pops up after an hour or even 1/2 hour wanting me to pay. I’m stuck in the fucking airport hell, drinking $4 bottled water and eating a $4 regular snickers and you want to piss me off even more?
In Newark, on a long layover with things to do, I actually considered buying an hour of time, but then the warnings came up that the site’s security certificate was in question. And you want my CC info? Fuck you Newark airport on about 15 different levels of shitty service.
Nobody is going to McDonald’s for the food. They have recognized this and provide amenities that make it worth your while (clean bathrooms, free wifi, proximity to landmarks and highways, play areas, ATMs, etc).
For most of these their monetization strategy is that most customers will buy a little something because they’d feel guilty about coming in and using internet without exchanging any money for the service. This seems to have worked out for them or else they wouldn’t offer anything other than a cashier stand and a window to retrieve your stuff from.
So everybody can it with the “the restaurant doesn’t exist for you to lounge in” crap. Most hours other than the lunch rush, they should be thrilled that somebody came in, gave them $0.95 profit on a $1.00 drink, and used a service with no extra marginal cost. (Whether real franchisees are thrilled depends on lots of other things, but the choice for some hours is between nobody and loungers, not loungers and high-value customers).
I don’t know about you, but I usually go to a restaurant to eat, not surf the internet. Sometimes, I will even talk to the people I’m with, or even…perfect strangers. Then, when I’m done, I will pay for my meal and leave, so another patron can have my table, generating greater profit for the proprietor.
But that’s just me.
Several people here have mentioned unlimited data plans.The problem with bringing this up (at least in the U.S.–I can’t speak for other countries) is that unlimited data plans are hard to come by these days.
AT&T and Verizon (and their resellers) no longer offer them (though, IIRC, there are still some lucky people who are ‘grandfathered in’ from the days AT&T did offer such).
Sprint has an unlimited plan, but outside of a few metro areas, Sprint’s network’s data speed Sucks–capital “S” intended. When I had this plan, my speed hardly ever exceeded 1-3 Mbps, and I live in the fourth-largest metro area in the country. “Unlimited 4G LTE data”, my narrow black ass. I struggled to do so much as watch YouTube. Streaming live TV (as I like to do with WeatherNation, and WFAA-TV’s local newscasts) was right out. Plus, they make you sign a contract.
That leaves us with T-Mobile, and their subsidiary, MetroPCS. One of these two companies is the only real option for anyone in the U.S. who wants an unlimited data plan. The speed is actually pretty good.
Of course, unless a given restaurant/bar/whatever Wi-Fi-using patron is either (A) willing to pay the extra for tethering, or (B) willing [and able] to take the techie approach and tether their phone without actually adding such to their cell plan, then that leaves phone-only Internet use. If you want to use the 'net on your tablet or laptop, Wi-Fi is a necessity.
I have MetroPCS’s unlimited data plan, and tether to my laptop, so I mostly use that. Where Wi-Fi is available, I use that instead–but since I can tether, and usually get between 10-50 Mbps speed–I can still do my internet thing at places without Wi-Fi (or at places where they heavily restrict usage on their wireless–I’m looking at YOU, Taco Bell!).
Bumping this thread to direct ire at Hilton hotels. Every last locally owned hotel in Podunk, USA has free wifi, and it’s often fast and easy to log on. Where the fuck does Hilton get off charging $10 a day on top of the room rate?!
Oh, but you can an sign up with their asshole rewards program and get it free after a cumbersome and invasive process. FUCK YOU, HILTON. My company uses you, but I will never patronize one of your properties on my own dime.
I don’t mind having to log on and register, because that’s one of the prices of the “free” wifi, being sent spam. There was one place I went to recently though that required you to follow an email link after you’d registered. Couldn’t do that because, uh, they hadn’t let me onto the internet.
I also don’t mind a time limit, but an hour would be more reasonable esp since it can take easily ten minutes just to log on and then everything’s so slow (even if the cafe is virtually empty) that everything takes longer than usual.
Until I got a tablet this wasn’t as much of an issue. With tablets, esp Android tablets, you pay a hell of a lot more for one with 3g capability.
My home internet crapped out on me, and I needed to have equipment shipped to my home address after a severe lightning storm since the electronics got damaged.
I called up my local International House of Pancakes, the one nearest to me which is always dead as fuck inside. They routinely run with one waitress.
I asked if they had free wifi and they did, and I went right over. Brought my laptop. I knew I was going to be there for probably 6-8 hours, and I told my waitress I’d be ordering a meal now, paying and tipping her generously, and likely ordering later as well, same deal. All I needed was a quiet corner. After my meal, I’d require no actual service, I’d go find her myself if I needed a drink refill.
Ended up tipping her and the person on the next shift after her 15 bucks, and ordered 2 meals. They never get customers and I took care of them, and they took care of me. Excellent food, good wi-fi. Being accommodated for that length of time was special to me, and no cable or internet service for several days meant that those tips were on AT&T’s dime anyway.
That’s how you do it if you’re going to be occupying the space for longer than a normal customer. XD
Had zero problem with their wifi, nothing elaborate needed. Highly recommend at the very least the IHOP I went to. Go to a much busier one and I’m sure it won’t go as smoothly as all that.