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Third places and neighborhood entrepreneurship (2024)
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago1. This is actually a really cool idea for a website. Is this powered by NotebookLM or some such? 2. Coffee shops are probably my favorite Third Place in general. Here in northern Europe, I've heard of some attempts at Costco-like coffee shops where you pay a yearly membership fee, somewhere between $50-100, for the ability to purchase coffee from there, but the coffee itself is quite cheap. You can usually bring some number of friends or colleagues as well. I'd really like to see this model take off, if they can solve some of the adversarial concerns with it (e.g. it probably shouldn't become a replacement for a full time office, but regular 2-3 hour work sessions seem ideal).
- WasimBhai 1y agoThank you. Previously it was NotebookLM but now I am doing the entire thing, music choice, dialogues editing.
- postexitus 1y agoWhat do you use to sound the back and forth dialogue?
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoOh, that's interesting. Did you find NotebookLM's dialogue wasn't getting you the tone you were after?
- WasimBhai 1y agoYes. And there is no music to make you feel the place.
- moritonal 1y agoPolitely, on point 1 I disagree entirely. At a glance I thought it was a parking domain and closed it because I figured their site had crashed. Likely because the "Listen Now" looks exactly like a Google Advert and the jump in gradient for the other element.
- WasimBhai 1y agoI definitely agree but as a poor graduate student, this was the cheapest domain I could find.
- 0xWTF 1y agoJust clarifying for thread (pretty sure OP understands) it's not the domain name that's sketchy, it's the page style.
- moritonal 1y agoHey, yeah, the site name is great, I'll never judge that. And even as design goes it's not "bad", it's just not as great as the parent comment originally implied. I originally mistook the site as an ad-website because of how it's designed, which lead to me leaving. The neat part, is that's pretty easy for you to fix, so best of luck.
- thucydides 1y agoYes, I had the same experience. OP should refresh the design
- WasimBhai 1y agoThank you. I deeply value the feedback.
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoThat sounds more like a design issue than an issue with the fundamental idea behind the website. 3 to 4 minute audio clips breezing over interesting new papers still seems near.
- dmbche 1y agoYou can look for 'anti-cafes", where crackers and coffee is free but you pay for the time you're there, it was somewhat popular a few years back
- frollogaston 1y agoI love coffee shops but don't like coffee very much, and they usually don't prioritize tea. Wish tea were more popular.
- collingreen 1y agoI love #2 and would like to see it become popular near me.
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoCafe hangout supremacy. The Yemeni coffee shops show the ideal model imo. Open late, lots of seating.
- yupitsme123 1y agoUnfortunately I think these kinds of places are almost impossible in modern american cities due to rent, labor costs, and red tape.
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoHave faith! There are like 5 in downtown SF alone. Example: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sanaa-cafe-san-francisco https://www.yelp.com/biz/sanaa-cafe-san-francisco
- prmph 1y agoOr, the kind of people who are likely to create startups are drawn to cities that are big on coffee shop culture. As usual the direction of causation is a bit difficult to tease out
- nemomarx 1y agoI think you have to assume the ability to meet other people like that helps in founding start ups though?
- potato3732842 1y agoWhat throws a big wrench into determining causation is that Starbucks tries to avoid opening where there isn't already a sufficient customer base. Even if you do manage to tease out causation tech and other "sophisticated" industry startups are also just the tip of the entrepreneurship iceberg. The bulk of the area under the curve of a city's wealth is the long tail of blue collar people who wouldn't voluntarily associate with the kind of people who go to Starbucks starting and making moves to grow businesses that HN snobs don't even notice.
- dghlsakjg 1y agoBlue collar people drink starbucks, HN isn't a monolith of elite snobs. Please don't use unfounded or un-provable negative stereotypes to try to make a point. If you read the article, you see that the effect was pronounced in lower income areas where a natural experiment was effectively run with Magic Johnson's intervention. Which kind of goes directly against what you are saying.
- PaulHoule 1y agoMy snobbish take that always gets downvoted was that you couldn't get a good cup of coffee in NYC during the 1990s. [1] There seemed to be two or three Starbucks on most blocks, probably because they thought they could fool stock market analysts into thinking it was that way coast to coast (like Duane Reade?) Independent espresso bars, which you could find in any mid-sized city in a flyover state by then, were driven out and you were left with bodegas and Jewish delis that served terrible gas station coffee at best. Not long after, this Ithaca company https://gimmecoffee.com/ https://gimmecoffee.com/ opened up a shop in Brooklyn and won an award for best coffee in the city, half because they have great coffee, half because they had no competition. It is better now, but the standard for gas station coffee is vastly higher thanks to things like https://concordiacoffee.com/products-tag/convenience-stores/ https://concordiacoffee.com/products-tag/convenience-stores/ [1] An astonishing hotbed of conformity. Sitting out in front of the headquarters of Fox News I was told that my wife and I were the freakiest looking people they'd seen in NYC and we only had matching costumes of t-shirts, jeans, ALICE packs and boonie caps with plastic flowers.
- bluehatbrit 1y agoOn the website / app this is using - it looks like a nice approach to consuming these papers, but I really wish they'd also provide the link to the original source paper. In an age where you can't trust anything anymore, being able to jump to the source material is really important. Edit: This comment was made when the post pointed to an audio form of the main article. I'll leave it here none the less as feedback to the audio sites maker.
- WasimBhai 1y agoThank you. I will definitely add that over the weekend.
- lazystar 1y agoNo, this needs to be added before you post to sites like hacker news. how can anyone trust that this audio isn't a 100% fabrication from an AI? Flagging this post, hoping the mods remove this. edit: thank you, mods, for changing the link.
- sneak 1y agoI’m pretty sure I would move to a city anywhere in the world based primarily on the availability of high quality 24 hour third places.
- the_real_cher 1y agoHell yeah same. Where though? West coast and Gulf Coast where Ive lived have very few.
- dghlsakjg 1y agoLook near universities and in the weird/artsy neighborhoods.
- Axsuul 1y agoKtown in LA has a few
- the_real_cher 1y agoI've been to one out there but it was crowded as hell all hours of the night because theres so few late night coffee shops in LA.
- ghaff 1y agoI question how many people would want to hang in 24-hour third spaces beyond spaces that are open to some reasonably late evening hour.
- dghlsakjg 1y agoNot many. But the existence of them in a place points towards a certain culture. You see them not necessarily in places like wall street, but more in places with strong intellectual culture like universities and artsy neighborhoods. I can use the existence of a country club as a useful signal about a place without being a member, or having any interest in it.
- anovikov 1y agoI really can't imagine how it could probably ever work. So one goes into Starbucks and start bugging other random people sitting there (with whatever topic, not just pushing their "elevator pitch" onto them)? If that happened people will start avoiding them just like they avoid places frequented by bums or beggars. No one wants that. People won't go where it is possible.
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoTypical mind fallacy. When I go visit places like this I do so with the explicit intention of meeting other people, otherwise I'd just stay at home. Plus, isn't the claim literally that there is correlational evidence here? That lightly suggests your model of how the world works in this area is off.
- TimorousBestie 1y agoCultural observations are not instances of typical mind fallacy, you’re reading OP too literally.
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoIt's not a cultural observation. No society founded upon good commerce could possibly get by without the mechanism OP is describing being encouraged in at least some public or semi-public spaces. You need to actually intract with people to trade with them.
- bravesoul2 1y agoYou are right, but then they invented long distance electronic communications, like the telephone. Even pre internet you'd run a business, word of mouth via... phone calls, trade shows..., plus maybe advertising. It needs no public space for random people to meet.
- anovikov 1y agoPerhaps it was indeed my personal thing. Maybe it's just that i'm introverted? But i'd hate to be bugged when in a cafe and if it ever happened (it never did), i'd probably stop visiting that particular place seeing it as a magnet for obnoxious types. And yes, i don't do any networking at all, literally never met any person i did business with, in 25 years of career. Or maybe, that is my European perspective? Because i probably never seen people doing that. There is an old observation that "networking" is American only cultural phenomenon and it doesn't exist in Europe - maybe it's one of the ways it manifests itself?
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- postexitus 1y agoTurkish Starbucks and its local equivalents are usually open until 2am. Don't have an idea on the impact on entrepreneurship though.
- PartiallyTyped 1y agoDublin has a big problem with 3rd spaces; no cafe is open for anywhere close to that, and we are all basically shoved to pubs.. I used to sit at cafes pretty late with a laptop — buying multiple ( >= 2 ) cups of coffee, often salads and sandwiches — in the countries I lived in, but there’s none of that in Ireland. Most non-chain cafes are not open past 17; and chains go on until 20.
- sillyfluke 1y agoBritish culture in general is pretty bad in this regard. Even in Central London, I find Leicester Square to be the only place that's a little alive at later hours. The pub culture, which I also like, might be to blame. If you start drinking at five on a work day it's pretty easy to call an early night. (there a lot of great third places if you stick to regular early hours, like the cafes of many of the museums.) Germany I find even worse though. It's kind of ironic since they seem to have a more robust nightclubbing culture compared to the Brits.
- picardo 1y agoIs it normal for people to be drinking coffee so late in the day?
- sillyfluke 1y agoI for one haven't been to a Starbucks anywhere in the world that even tracks whether sitting customers have ordered anything. Is this a thing? Has anyone been to such a Starbucks?
- zappb 1y agoIt's certainly normal in the Middle East where coffee is a big part of the culture. In some countries, coffee kind of fills the gap where alcohol might normally where it's banned.
- Majromax 1y agoOriginal paper link: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32604 https://www.nber.org/papers/w32604
- huem0n 1y agoThank you. (Wouldn't have read otherwise)
- bdbenton5255 1y agoLike a church? A synagogue? A mosque? That fits the definition exactly. It seems like a substitute for a house of worship for people who do not believe in God.
- huem0n 1y agoStarbucks is my favorite place to worship
- nemomarx 1y agoYou do things at a place of worship other than socializing and meeting people, so while a church is a third space not all third spaces are very church like. A bar doesn't really have worship analogues right
- williamdclt 1y agoI don't think that's true. All third spaces I can think of are based on some activity, around which some community (or individual social relationships) form which might or might not be so closely related to the activity. - Church/temple/mosque/etc: worship - Bar: drinking alcoholic drinks - Gym/sport: physical exercise - Volunteering: whatever you're volunteering for - Coffee shop: coffee? Reading, working? All these have "a thing you do other than socializing and meeting people". You could (and do) go there specifically for the activity without socializing and meeting people (just like church). Spaces that are "social-only" are pretty rare. Coffee shops are maybe closer to that as you're probably not going to consume many coffees, but people stay to read, work... it's a bit less structured than other third spaces (and personally I find that it makes it more difficult to socialise there)
- graemep 1y ago> Bar: drinking alcoholic drinks Also a feature of some churches - parties in the church hall, the university chapel I used to go to that had a church run bar in the same building! More seriously, bars are primarily places to socialise that happen serve drinks so I think they are similar to coffee shops that way.
- picardo 1y agoI'd be interested to see an update to this study in the coming years. Starbucks has been pivoting towards take out and mobile orders and removing tables and chairs entirely from some of its stores lately.
- ghaff 1y agoI don't dispute that there may be a trend but a lot of Starbucks have long had pretty scanty seating--and certainly tables where you can reasonably meet and talk. And it can be fairly difficult to find a table at more traditional cafes/coffeeshops. So there's reasonable debate over whether a lot of coffeeshops are really third places.
- walterbell 1y ago> debate over whether a lot of coffeeshops are really third places What are some examples of real third places in major US cities?
- fireflash38 1y agoI've been seeing more breweries focusing on catering to parents of young children too by building playsets or having more child-friendly areas.
- padraic7a 1y agoPublic Libraries.
- sneak 1y agoThe third places in the United States are almost exclusively churches and bars. It’s sort of gross. As a teetotaling atheist, I moved to Berlin for the universities and night clubs, as there are tons of social events associated with both.
- picardo 1y agoAgreed on both points. In my middle age, I've even considered starting drinking again so that I may have a reason to go to the only place where people hang out in my neighborhood, which is obviously a bar. The one and only social activity that has saved me from this road so far has been a few meetup groups that I frequent.
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- WasimBhai 1y agoI am sorry, I did not follow the guidelines so link was rightly removed. Here is the audioform link: https://thetreeoflife.cc/demo https://thetreeoflife.cc/demo
- bravesoul2 1y agoIn SF? Not anywhere I've been though. Cafes I see are full of friends catching up, families or caffeine addicts.
- ak217 1y agoCheck Four Barrel or The Mill. I'm sure there are others. For many years, Coffeebar played this role in SF - I was sad when they closed.
- b0a04gl 1y agoi remember koramangala, 5th block specifically, mid 2023. that blue tokai outlet next to roastery was ground zero. half of early stage bangalore was working from there. two pm to six pm you'd overhear: investor calls, pitch deck review, even product teardown with some YC alum. no seats inside so i parked at the outside bench near the window. wifi barely reached there. next to me this guy's debugging something on a steamdeck looking devkit. i half glance over and ask if it's AWS creds, he goes 'nah, it's some edge TPU , google keeps timing out cold starts'. we start chatting. turns out he's building vision for offline-first retail. he's got no frontend, just a python backend. i scribble something on a napkin about fast-booting wasm modules from disk cache. 3 weeks later he pings me on telegram saying they got boot time down from 14s to 2.8s using a variant of that. never met him again. never even learned his startup's name. but that entire bottleneck cleared because two people overheard a swear word near a bad socket. we maynot recreate that on a discord channel. there's no incentive to overshare when you're not spatially co-located. bangalore 2023 worked because entropy was high and friction was low
- aadhavans 1y agoI grew up ~20 minutes from the place you're describing, and you just made me very nostalgic :D
- kylehotchkiss 1y agoI miss blue tokai! So many fun memories and delicious cold coffees there
- gopalv 1y ago> bangalore 2023 worked because entropy was high and friction was low Go a whole decade+ back, it was the Leela coffee shop which opened till 1 AM. > we maynot recreate that on a discord channel. IRC + freenode did the same decades ago, back in the day when the computers wouldn't fit in a backpack - people would just lurk socially and not really join a channel for a purpose. Most of #linux-india was a third place after midnight, though not a physical one.
- neilv 1y ago> because two people overheard a swear word near a bad socket. There's also an undesirable side to coworking cafe low-OPSEC. Funny anecdote about that... I was meeting up with a startups friend, at one of the cafes that's popular for techbros. Before we met up, friend mentioned this guy from the startups scene, who sometimes lurks at that cafe, to steal ideas. So friend and I are talking at the cafe about an application domain we both know. And how we're surprised no one is doing X for it, because then you could do A, B, C, etc. I look over, and some guy has moved from his table, to sit on the floor, close to us, and just has a cat-that-got-the-canary beaming look on his face. Yes, it was the noted lurker-stealer guy. Shortly after, an organization he's affiliated with announced a big initiative/group to do X for that application domain. Maybe just a funny coincidence.
- wagwang 1y ago> First, we compare census tracts that received a Starbucks to census tracts that expected a Starbucks but did not ultimately get one due to administrative issues such as city planning, zoning board rejection, architectural board rejection, or community mobilization. These ‘rejected’ Starbucks are a natural control group because Starbucks Corporation also sought to invest in those neighborhoods. This is a terrible control group cuz it probably means that the cities that rejected starbucks have idiotic zoning and permit policies that impact entrepreneurship. Like SF, any restaurant that has over 7 locations requires special permitting and can be easily blocked.
- hinkley 1y agoThey’re usually called “third spaces” not third places. Otherwise you’d confuse them with bronze medal winners.
- Nicell 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
- hinkley 1y agoWikipedia, the arbiter of all truth. > Third space" redirects here. For the postcolonial term, see Third Space Theory. For the concept of informal shared public space in community planning, see Third place. There’s a bookstore in Seattle called Third Place Books. Rarely did I encounter someone who knew why it was called that.
- nsxwolf 1y agoYou people already turned every coffee shop into a wework and now you want a "third space".
- collingreen 1y agoWho are "you people" in this accusation?
- worik 1y agoTwenty five years ago, when I did Econ 101 I had it explained to me the theoretical underpinning for the fact that coffee shop chains are impossible Does Starbucks even exist?
- ak217 1y agoIn terms of the ratio of profitability to social good and positive economic externalities, coffee shops are in a category of their own. All the cities trying to attract businesses and stuff should just subsidize some coffee shops first.
- mystraline 1y agoAt least in the US, SBUX was the primary 3rd place until they decided to remove themselves in lieu of drivethru and mobile orders... And removing chairs and tables. To be fair, a proper 3rd place really can't be a company proper, since there's always the pressure of 'buy or leave'. Even malls aren't sufficient, since many of them are incredibly hostile to under-18. I instead look at public libraries as the gold standard here. It makes much more sense for cities to run the actual 3rd place, and businesses rent around the 3rd place. That way, coffee shops, restaurants, and the like can comingle as can the people. Outside the USA, we see more of that in various areas. But folks here would likely howl socialism with a 3rd place run by the city. One can wish for better community, but alas.
- gopalv 1y ago> folks here would likely howl socialism with a 3rd place run by the city. It is not socialism, the problem is the lack of that. My city does a good job of running a 3rd place as part of their library, it is right outside the library in a big seating area meant for phone calls & talking in general. But they have 3 full-time security staff, the police station is across the street and the social case workers have an office in the same building. Outside of a decent coffee, the place has everything for me to walk in with my kids in the summer and work while they roam the hallways as if it was their own, meeting other kids from the same school district. There's even a no-cars allowed trail connecting the place for kids to cycle safely to. However, take away the constant enforcement by security + social case worker hovering, this falls apart because it'll have the etiquette of a subway car. The homeless are there btw, but they tend to be non-disruptive and mostly there to get help with something (like a cancelled EBT card).
- chasd00 1y ago> But folks here would likely howl socialism with a 3rd place run by the city. I think you're talking about a public library, there's typically plenty of rooms and tables to sit down at and talk with others.
- mystraline 1y agoI explicitly call out public libraries. But I didn't get into that discussion, but even that system was borne out of Carnegie, an earlier hypercapitalist. That's probably the only reason why libraries are publicly accepted. And in reality, many Republican jurisdictions, they aren't accepted and are being actively defunded. Well, what I was getting to was more of a European piazza style open area with businesses surrounding it so that people can attend somewhere ever to whatever.
- phendrenad2 1y agoThird places still exist, and if you go find them, you'll notice something: Most of the best ones aren't places of commerce. Not coffee shops, but clubs, churches, nonprofits, public parks, universities, apartment courtyards, volunteer fire departments, etc. I think that our modern society, based around cutthroat capitalist optimization where any "third space" is a lost opportunity to extract money from "consumers", is so far from the possibility of true "third spaces" that we can't even reason about them properly, no, not even the people who ostensibly study them academically.
- dSebastien 1y agoMost people also miss a fourth place: https://www.dsebastien.net/you-need-a-fourth-place-a-place-to-think/ https://www.dsebastien.net/you-need-a-fourth-place-a-place-t...