3 ms·

They should just rent out table space per minute independently of the cost of meal itself.

• lsc 13y ago
  sort of the 'internet cafe' model with refreshments. If you wanted to go for the 'uber' crowd, you could adjust your prices based on demand. I don't know about the adjusting price on demand (there is a lot of advantage to fixed and predictable prices) but I do think it is a model that could possibly work. Without demand pricing, you would also need some hook to 'bootstrap' I mean, you aren't going to pay money to go hang out in an empty building - maybe good free coffee? that would be a cheap hook that would work, at least for me. This would also likely work in a place where there aren't good regular coffee houses. I imagine a 'pay by the hour' place would have a hard time existing next to, say, red rock in mountain view. The other problem I see is actually collecting the money; if you charge people per-drink, they pay you when they get another drink. If you charge per hour, you've gotta have someone monitoring, or hand out hardware that tracks the customer. I do like the model, though. You can emphasize the social, you know, like a nightclub, only with the more intellectual connotations of the cafe.
  • yetanotherphd 13y ago
    my comment wasn't 100% serious, more poking fun at my disciplines tendency to advocate "markets for everything". However maybe it won't be too long before all kinds of social venues don't charge by the hour. It seems like even the low tech solution of time limits is not viable for these places, so they resort to the simpler solution of taking coffee off the menu.