As part of a plan to reinvigorate its brand, Starbucks will offer free wireless Internet access at more than 7,000 stores. This spring, customers who use Starbucks cards can get up to two hours per day of free Wi-Fi, while customers of AT&T Broadband and U-Verse services will have unlimited access in Starbucks stores. Others can purchase two hour increments for $3.99 – much cheaper than the existing T-Mobile service.
Future Tense commentator Dwight Silverman says this expansion of free Wi-Fi is good news for mobile workers, but bad news for independent coffee shops.
So reports John Gordon on American Public Media.
A few thoughts:
- Very little, pretty late, to make me fall in love with Starbucks. They’ve been yanking their customers’ chains with their locked wi-fi for a long time, and it should be 100% free and unlimited to everyone who buys coffee.
- Two hours a day is stingy; unless, like me, that’s more than enough time to have the old ample posterior parked in a coffeehouse.
- $2 an hour is simply a rip-off. Is the dark liquid property of their product the only thing Starbucks has in common with Exxon Mobile? Apparently not.
- It’s not bad news for independent coffeehouses which are able to do two things: make better coffee than Starbucks and provide totally free wi-fi. That should be very easy to do.
Metaphor 
I started drinking coffee at Starbucks a few years ago; so, I don’t know any better. I don’t mind paying a premium for the coffee because a lot of the price goes to paying health insurance premiums for employees, which is a good social purpose. Maybe the coffee would be cheaper if the U.S. government took better care of its citizens and provided universal health care.
The fee wi-fi is a good thing, however.