[IP] more on Some Cafe Owners Pull the Plug on Lingering Wi-Fi Users

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joe Touch <touch@ISI.EDU>
Date: June 15, 2005 1:26:55 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: Ip ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Some Cafe Owners Pull the Plug on Lingering  
Wi-Fi Users



A related note on coffee shops and computer users:

There was a eclectic coffee shop in Venice called "Van Gogh's Ear" where
a few of us used to go and do late-night work on our laptops.

The owner complained that we were costing him money - notably,
electricity, since we were plugging in. Despite showing him that the
price of electricity is $0.08/KWh, and that, at 25 watts, if we were
there hours we'd cost a grand total of 0.6KWh, i.e., under a nickel. We
offered him a quarter, to provide a reasonable profit - although we were
there only an hour or two anyway, but he wasn't interested.

His shop went under a few years ago, though it's not clear why, and free
WiFi is now being used to attract customers at many coffee shops, malls,
etc.

Smart shop owners will realize the benefits reaped outweigh the other
costs of running the shop anyway, IMO. But there's no reasoning with the
large number of Luddites out there, in general ;-)

Joe


-------------------------------------
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/