This was always the case. Coffee shops are more about hanging out and finding a casual environment to work than about the coffee. You could replace the coffee

This was always the case. Coffee shops are more about hanging out and finding a casual environment to work than about the coffee. You could replace the coffee with an hourly charge and it would probably have the same effect, except people are not really used to paying for a place to sit, so coffee becomes the way to extract the money. At least that’s how I, as someone who doesn’t drink coffee but finds himself in coffee shops all the time, perceive it.