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Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers
- pengaru 1y agoaww shucks, there goes my plan to pack my Threadripper into a 90s vintage Dolch "portable computer" housing and let Starbucks pay the power bills.
- pstuart 1y agoSeems like an opportunity for a coworking-lite space -- rent a seat/desk spot for 1 hour blocks.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 1y agoI somehow doubt that people are lugging a desktop and printer around the city, only to set it up and work for 1 hour in Starbucks.
- pstuart 1y agoBy the hour, implying multiple are possible.
- worthless-trash 1y agoWith starbucks delivery, starbucks printing, etc.
- recursivecaveat 1y agoThey actually have exactly that for gaming: a "pc bang" like a internet cafe. I wonder if it has been tried in earnest for co-working. You would think it is an easier business so long as the demand is there.
- iojcde 1y agoThere's also study cafes, which are aimed more primarily at students but often have working spaces for laptop use. These are quiet spaces to focus compared to something like Starbucks or PC bangs though.
- bryanhogan 1y agoThere's already a large offering of such spaces in Korea. You have cafes where you can bring your laptop and work in peace, there's pc cafes / pc bangs which are more for gaming but provide a desktop, there are places where you can rent co-working spaces or spaces for co-working that you can use with a membership.
- Oreb 1y agoIsn’t that how most coworking spaces work already? I’ve worked from a lot of them, and it always worked like that: I check in when I arrive in the morning, and when I check out at the end of the day, I pay for the number of hours I have spent there (often capped to a maximum of 5 hours or so, even if I stay longer).
- pstuart 1y agoMy original comment was an offhand observation, but the difference under assumption is that co-working spaces require a contract/commitment, whereas the scenario I had in mind was no commitment other than paying for each time of use. Maybe that's already a thing; my sense of self is not dependent upon being "right" in this matter.
- arkh 1y agoWhat a novel concept! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang
- philipallstar 1y agoI first assumed this was a YouTube video where someone eats a PC in front of their livestream audience.
- EE84M3i 1y agoCo-working spaces of all types are ubiquitous in Tokyo FWIW. Near my midsize station I had about 10 different providers in a 10 minute walking radius, some with multiple locations even! Most have a selection of plans to choose from: hourly, daily, monthly, etc I chose a bit more upscale one without a fixed seat. I pay ¥1100 (7.5 USD) I think for each day I use it, with a monthly minimum spend of ¥2200. It comes with free mediocre coffee/tea. It is consistently clean and library quiet as people follow the posted rules including minding the volume of their typing and headphones. I would be surprised if the situation in Seoul was significantly different.
- jalapenos 1y agoI feel genuinely sad for anyone who's in such a desperate spot that they're doing this
- pfannkuchen 1y agoWhat makes you think they’re desperate? IME people from Asian cultures sometimes have ways of thinking that strike at least me personally as basically alien. And then my brain interpolates their motives wrong based on biases that are shaped by western versions of politeness etc.
- jalapenos 1y agoWho the eff lugs their desktop machine and printer to Starbucks instead of just use it in their house if that's a workable option? You'd have to be sorely motivated by something. Asians are in fact human dude.
- forinti 1y agoThe apartment is small; the missus wants you out of it so that she can clean it; you have a deadline; there's a café nearby; bingo.
- shinycode 1y agoPeople bring printers to Starbucks… really ? I’m kind of surprised it feels like an abuse to me o_O it would never cross my mind
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago[flagged]
- arkh 1y agoSouth Korea is cyber café country. If you open a café there, people expect some specific services. I guess the fact people come with PCs and printer is a way to demonstrate how they don't want this part of US culture and would like to keep theirs. So either adapt and start offering PC bang in South Korea or go home.
- somedude895 1y agoOr you know, you could just not go there if you don't like the place rather than be a prick to people who work there and customers who like going there.
- thrown-0825 1y agoHard to do when starbucks is a real estate holding company that sells coffee. They have sucked all the air out of the cafe space and driven out their competitors.
- yorwba 1y agoDriven out their competitors where? In Seoul, Twosome Place and Hollys are ubiquitous, there's a few more chains whose names I don't remember off the top of my head and plenty of single-location cafes remain as well.
- true_religion 1y agoIs this to the point that no internet cafes exist?
- miohtama 1y agoThe solution is to bring back cybercafes, or cafes which were set up up to go online. Such culture existed in the 90s but was then ended by the widespread online accessibility by home ADSL and later mobile internet. https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe-cyberia-london/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe...
- bryanhogan 1y agoSouth Korea has many pc cafes, so called pc bangs / pc방, and there are also many study cafes where you can work for long periods.
- ljf 1y agoThe 'problem' with those for remote workers is that you pay per minute/hour in a cybercafe - in a normal coffee shop you can just nurse one coffee for hours and pay a single low cost (and get a coffee). I can't remember the name of it now but back in 2010s there was an 'OK' managed drop-in office space you could rent for £10 a day in central London - which came with free coffee and printing - I haven't looked at the prices lately.
- iainmerrick 1y agoWow, I'd be curious about the details if you can remember. I was working from cafes in London at that time, and I would have loved to find a place like that. I had to either use actual cafes (free besides getting a coffee and maybe a sandwich, limited privacy and security) or pay for a dedicated space, generally with too much tedious bureaucracy. Maybe I misremember, but to get prices as low as £10/day I think you had to commit to a large number of days per month. I don't recall anyone offering low prices a la carte.
- ljf 1y agoJust looked up my email - and in 2012 I paid £10 4 hours in the Regus shared working space in central London - I think a 7 hour day might of been £12 but I don't have a full booking. From memory it was behind Bond Street - I was working for a small company in East London, and was taking the afternoon off to interview for another role. I wanted to be able to work right up until the interview and have somewhere to get changed into my suit, so didn't want to work from a cafe. I'd seen the offer in various 'business' magazines at the time, it wasn't brilliant, and I wouldn't have been happy their full time, but it was perfect for the day I needed it for. Prior to that time we had been paying £330 a month for a desk on Dean Street Soho - but that was a monthly rolling contract as you say, and we'd just moved to some free space in Farringdon, where a friend was letting us use a desk (I think in part to make their office look busier). There was a drop in place in East London that offered similar day prices back in 2010, as I went to look around it - but it was too noisy for me - was walking distance to the Silicon Roundabout - but I can't remember what it was called.
- bryanhogan 1y agoHaving lived in Korea, I have always enjoyed the cafe culture. Starbucks there is known for accepting you to work there. Although I haven't seen anyone bring a printer yet, some do bring extra stuff such as a stand for their laptop that take up a lot of space. The only thing this article mentions is that Starbucks prohibits people of bringing stuff that would take up more than a single seat, which seems reasonable?
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI used to travel with a Canon PIXMA printer. Quite portable. Could carry a laptop and printer in a small backpack. The paper was heavy, though.
- doublerabbit 1y agoWhat were you printing that required a print to be carried with you? Personally printing should be banned. The amount of paper waste we create disgraceful.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI worked for a Japanese company. Paper is a big deal, there. Also, I have long subscribed to Tufte's "supergraphic" methodology, when giving presentations.
- seb1204 1y agoIn which way? Can you elaborate? What type of document would you need to print on the go? What for or for whom?
- doublerabbit 1y ago> I worked for a Japanese company. Paper is a big deal, there. About time they evolved to the next level then. My point still sticks. Paper waste is a large impact to climate change. We shouldn't be using paper anymore, why do we proceed to waste such as by printing out email's?
- cryptoz 1y agoReminds me of the Improv Everywhere sketch where they did this exact thing. https://youtube.com/watch?v=EKEeHREK2nQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=EKEeHREK2nQ
- paranoidrobot 1y agoI thought about Improv Everywhere recently - they had some great things in the early 2000s. Re watching this, at about 1:16 one of the agents looks familiar. "Huh, she looks kinda like Aubrey Plaza". Then the credits come on: It was actually Aubrey Plaza.
- tennisflyi 1y agoI thought that too!
- tennisflyi 1y ago17 years ago - wow!
- jiehong 1y agoOr maybe Starbucks should install a common printer with a fee? The large items policy still makes sense, though
- sschueller 1y agoThat will ruin them at $1,500 to $2,000 per litre of ink...
- unglaublich 1y agoThey could provide Starbucks branded ink of which 95% of the cost is licensing fees which they pay out tax-free to themselves.
- krogenx 1y agoMaybe they could do some R&D to see if coffee could be used as ink.
- londons_explore 1y agoI just put coffee in my printer to see... It kinda works, but the printouts are very faint. I was expecting it to clog immediately (the jets are ~10um), but it didn't.
- ctxc 1y ago
- sandspar 1y agoIt's hard to run a global business. Different people have such different ways of doing things. Every day, tens of millions of people run pen tests on Starbuck's rules. And Starbuck's front line of defence? A bunch of shy college student baristas.
- thrown-0825 1y agoMost of those people arent in college, especially outside the US.
- dominicrose 1y agoWhy would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway. I guess some people still have their old computer and a lot of south korenas are gamers, but laptops are just better overall because of the portability. If people bring printerS pural then starbuck could "just" have a free-ish printer
- littlestymaar 1y agoAnyone who doesn't need to work while traveling actually. A desktop is both cheaper (at the same spec), while being much more durable due to being upgradable and reparable. Sure laptop win in terms of portability, but since we can do so much on our phone, I don't really feel the need to bring a computer with me everywhere.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoThey used to be cheaper. Might still be? I've had mine about ten years and it's still on the original CPU and mobo and PSU I think. I've probably saved a few hundred bucks from not buying another whole computer. It might not be as fast as a new laptop but it has more RAM and storage than most. If I want to go into LLM stuff I will buy a newish used GPU for it. If the CPU is a bottleneck then I'll get a new mobo but I won't need a new chassis or PSU maybe ever. And the hard drives just rotate as I buy bigger ones
- okasaki 1y agoLaptops are terrible - - Too small - too loud - too hot - too few ports - fake performance (good luck with your 105W "5090") - OS confusion about active screen, keyboard and mouse (how many times have I experienced that only the built-in keyboard works during booting, or the OS showing the login screen on only the built-in screen), - most of them have to be open or have ports in awkward places, and take up space comparable to a desktop.
- iainmerrick 1y agoEveryone has different needs. A lot of us get by very nicely with a good laptop and a big monitor (or two). Very few moving parts to keep track of, and you can be productive both home and away.
- jwr 1y agoIn Tokyo, coffee shops seem to have embraced the work culture. Tables and seating have been adapted to working, and you often get a receipt with the time when you are expected to leave printed on it. Most (if not all) people in a Tully's in Tokyo are there to work.
- kalleboo 1y agoEven McDonalds has seats with power outlets, I mostly see groups of students studying rather than people working.
- eswat 1y agoSeoul is similar. Many Twosome Places have study desks and some of the chains known for small footprint also have bigger locations for meetings and work (Ediya Coffee Lab). I never understood why people who are frugal would go to Starbucks in Korea to work, when local chains are beside them, have cheaper drinks and their desk/chair setups are less hostile to working.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- apt-apt-apt-apt 1y agoI saw a guy (in america) charge his e-bike battery once at Starbucks. GPT estimates a full recharge to be around 30 cents.
- daemonologist 1y agoHah, probably comparable to running a desktop for an equivalent amount of time - most ebike chargers are 100 - 200 W, and the bikes usually have a battery between 0.5 - 1 kWh (which in my area would be 5 - 10 cents). Less disruptive though, assuming they detached the battery and left the bike outside.
- mk_stjames 1y ago>GPT estimates (...) Dude it's middle school math. Average pedal assist e-bike battery, estimate at 500 watt-hours. Electricity prices at my home are about 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. (0.5 kwhr) * (20 cents/kwhr) = 10 cents. With an additional 10-15% due to charging system inefficiencies (lost to heat). 11 cents. It can be good exercise to do an 8th grade level word problem every now and then.
- ViktorRay 1y agoThe actual arithmetic is easy but most people don’t know about the batteries in e-bikes. They might not know about the electricity prices at the top of their heads either. You could google those…but it seems easier to just use GPT if you’re going to google that stuff anyway.
- mk_stjames 1y agoWell considering the GPT reported '30 cents' a charge, it is either a. considering 3x larger battery than I would consider average e-bike sized (and I got my 500Wh number based on a 10-second google scan), b. price of electricity it is considering is 3x higher (highly doubt it) or c. it is imagining that modern lithium ion charging efficiencies wall-to-battery are way, way worse than they actually are (possible to hallucinate and integrate into its calculation). Either way, we don't know, and the original commenter doesn't know either, because they didn't google anything about e-bike battery sizes or their local electricity prices and thus didn't take the opportunity to actually learn something.
- rich_sasha 1y agoCafes provide two distinct products, usually bundled into one: seat rental and food/drink. How about charge separately for each? I get that it would be awkward to try, but why not.
- stby 1y agoNewer Coworking places generally seem to have some Starbucks-vibes, but AFAIK they are not doing to well. Maybe the price of a coffee is exactly what people are willing to pay for a seat, a small table, and wifi for some hours.
- currency 1y agoCoworking spaces need to colocate with services. Starbucks, Fedex Kinkos, massage chairs....
- mathiaspoint 1y agoI haven't seen a coworking place that isn't insanely overpriced compared to a coffee shop so it's no surprise they're not doing well.
- mhitza 1y agoIn my experience price isn't the only issue. One of the (smaller) coworking spaces I can have access to locally, closes at 6pm while a coffee shop at around 9-10PM and it's also open on weekends. But then again, I find working in coffee shops too distracting, so work from home and randomly popping into a coworking space now and then.
- mantra2 1y agoLittle overpriced but I've found Loop Earplugs to help working in coffee shops, etc. Muffles out most of the sound but not everything, enough to focus but not fly off your seat if someone taps your shoulder.
- xg15 1y agoAt this point I wonder why Starbucks hasn't diversified and started building actual coworking spaces in addition to coffee shops. They look like they should be in an ideal position for that.
- eqvinox 1y agoThey'd have to charge people for using those, which people won't be eager to. The point of coffee shops in this regard is that the use as free coworking space is "parasitic" on the space being financed by the café business.
- MetaWhirledPeas 1y agoI wonder how often they try large floor plans. Most Starbucks I see try to keep things small. What happens if you make it a bit larger, like a small library? I wonder if the increase in foot traffic and sales would offset the cost of extra real estate. They could keep it free, but also somewhat cross over into coworking.
- rcpt 1y agoIt's like parking, if it's free people will take all of it quickly
- bluedino 1y agoThat's a Barnes and Noble proudly serving Starbucks coffee
- pvtmert 1y agosimply, even cleaning and keeping it tidy is a quadratic equation compared to the space available. people leave their garbage behind or spill their coffee, making a single table somewhat unusable for some time. there are already min. number of employees, mostly busy at the bar. having extra space equals requiring more hands for cleaning, hence cost not linearly increasing but quadratic with the square meter. another thing is, if the space gets full, people get out anyway, but chance to buy stuff. for example, let's see there are 2 empty tables right now, you get in to the line, there are 6 people in the queue. imagine 3 of them somewhat occupies the those 2 empty tables, even if you resign the idea of getting coffee, i guarantee you that at least 1 of the other 2 would still get coffee but just move to a nearby park or bench. which starbucks obviously does not pay the rent for...
- Simulacra 1y agoIf there's no cost, people will take advantage of it.
- mromanuk 1y agoThey did build something people want, why are they rejecting it now?
- bdcravens 1y agoMaking something people want isn't enough, unless they want to start paying their employees and leases with smiles.
- samschooler 1y agoThere is a photo in the Korea Herald article linked in op's article. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10550038 https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10550038
- mock-possum 1y agoBizzare entitlement
- testing22321 1y ago[flagged]
- urbandw311er 1y agoI think it’s quite a stretch for you to interpret the parent comment like that. Surely they’re referring to people’s entitled behaviour in this private space.
- mvdtnz 1y agoThey're not "wishing" they're just "taking". And yes that's kind of definitionally entitlement.
- nradov 1y agoA generation ago we didn't have public third places where people could plug in a desktop computer and printer.
- strken 1y agoI did, sort of, depending on what you mean by "public". My local pub provided a free desktop computer, my local library did too (and the librarian once allowed me to set up my own desktop), my community had two regular lan parties, you could rent the local hall for a pittance, and all my friends' parents owned houses with spare rooms or garages that they'd let us set up projects in. I get that not all of these are strictly public spaces or places where you'd do office work, but it must suck to have nowhere better to go than a Starbucks. Edit: even today, I think I could probably ask my local library and they'd let me, although someone might steal my monitor.
- amelius 1y agoAre 3d printers allowed? How about a soldering station? Or a desktop scanning electron microscope?
- JKCalhoun 1y agoI have a water cooler … on wheels. Yes? No?
- postalcoder 1y agoAmusingly, those are all available at a cafe i’ve frequented in Seoul. They’re used as background dressing but they’re also available to use. It’s criminally underused and i’d love to do it but i have no idea what i would make with it.
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoMy friends got into tabletop wargaming last year, we print almost everything. Also, great for organizers for drawers, tools, etc.
- function_seven 1y agoAll of those sound more reasonable than my Model M keyboard.
- seizethecheese 1y agoI have soldered in a Starbucks before.
- jdblair 1y agoIn 2014, in a Starbucks in Los Gatos, CA, I saw someone bring in a (small) desktop PC and a monitor and set it up at a table.
- selimthegrim 1y agoMy roommate claims she saw the same in the Valley (in Sherman Oaks/VN in LA) in 2019
- bombcar 1y agoThis joke was closer to real life in 1999: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FE_acveWUBMMJNU.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FE_acveWUBMMJNU.jpg
- ericcumbee 1y agoI’ve seen that as well a few times.
- Nifty3929 1y agoFree, common-use things are awesome - until the tragedy of the commons sets in and ruins it for everybody. This is true of so many things that start free and then later require payment. And everybody gets mad about it.
- stockresearcher 1y agoChicago has "residential zone parking" for the areas of the city that are primarily residential. For $30 per year per car, you get to park on the street in your local zone (2-3 city blocks). Nobody else is allowed to park on the street in that zone. For visitors, you can buy a sheet of stickers for $1 per sticker that enable 1 day of parking. But you can't buy more than 3 sheets in a month (they keep track). I've always wondered why NYC and other big cities don't do this. It costs so little, yet makes it much easier to park where you live.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoResidents love these policies but local businesses tend to hate them.
- stockresearcher 1y agoBusiness zones (IE arterial streets) use metered parking
- paxys 1y agoDensity. If you paid for a parking permit then there's some expectation that a parking spot will be available for you near your house. Except in NYC residents outnumber parking spots 20:1 in some neighborhoods.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Nifty3929 1y agoI imagine you use prices and rationing to restrict the number of permits to avoid this issue.
- amadeuspagel 1y agoPeople shouldn't have to bring a desktop computer, they should already have one there.
- PeterStuer 1y agoIf this is such a pervasive problem you'd think the article would have had no problem sourcing a photo of this instead of some generic phone ogling group?
- knubie 1y agoI've been living in Seoul for a few months now and often work out of different Starbucks and have never seen anything like this here. I spent a similar amount of time in Seattle and saw much "worse" set ups at the coffee shops there.
- jjani 1y agoI've been to Starbucks in Seoul 100+ times (not proud of it, more the opposite) and have never seen anything like this.
- MeIam 1y agoPrinters?! Desktop?! They need to wheel the stuff in. Hilarious how far people go to save a few bucks.
- kazinator 1y ago> Starbucks South Korea implemented a policy asking patrons to not bring bulky items like desktop computers and printers into stores. .. says the caption under a Getty image which shows no such thing! No wonder people don't respect the media. The only reason I would click on this sort of thing would be to see a video or image of Koreans bringing their desktops and printers to a Starbucks and setting them up. Without that, I can imagine it just fine without relying on any words in the article. Searching YouTube, I'm not able to find any videos footage of people with desktops that they brought to a Starbucks in South Korea. The story is circulating and there are various new stories in various languages from various news networks, but all have only generic footage unrelated to the story. I found this 17-year-old prank video (not Koreans): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKEeHREK2nQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKEeHREK2nQ One 7-year-old video (likewise): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBRkRZzCeTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBRkRZzCeTo Ho-hum content. They brought a computer, set it up and sat down. I'm guessing this Korea thing was probably a very small number of people in specific locations (possibly pranksters) and not a national trend.
- zippyman55 1y agoIn my town, this one guy, set up his whole kit. 25” monitor, gaming setup. Disk drives. And then he could be there for 13 hrs a day. A little extreme!
- cmod 1y agoIn Japan I’ve seen at Starbucks: a guy bring in a giant power supply and plop it down on top of the table to power his tower and monitor like it wasn’t the most sociopathic thing in the world. And another guy used to set up six or seven screens at his table to “daytrade” — turns out he wasn’t day trading at all, they were all running videos of fake daytrading / stock tickers. (I had a friend at that Starbucks who would give me all the details; they had to ban him eventually for disrupting / getting surly with other customers).
- forinti 1y agoA food court near my house has slowly turned into an improvised coworking space. It's relatively quiet (as food courts go). For a while, the café even offered a whole day's worth of coffee for a reasonable price. What I don't get is why the increasingly empty malls in my state don't incentivise this more. At the very least they'd earn something from parking and some food and drinks.
- zulban 1y agoAbsent owners of malls don't want to think or work with the community to earn money. They just want big anchor store contracts like it's the 90s.
- rubatuga 1y agoI saw someone with a portable monitor and Mac mini in our local Toronto Second Cup location.
- jbirer 1y agoI am more than happy to "take my coffee and fuck off". But I'll do it with a 50 cent instant coffee from a supermarket, not pay 10$ for it just to not be able to relax in a coffee shop.
- danluvscock 1y ago[dead]