This article seem to be centered on Dutch culture (Which I have discovered the hard way is one of the most stingy frugal culture you could ever imagine).

That would be to the benefit of the shop - scaring away non paying customers who are hogging a scarce resource is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I've been in cafés in New York that looked like open plan offices because everyone was on a laptop (and there were no free tables), and many cafés in London now have laptop policies so I think the problem is broader than you suggest.

I don't think this would be the negative you're implying it to be. That empty seat would be of much more benefit to the café.

The first coffeehouses established in Oxford were known as penny universities, as they offered an alternative form of learning to structural academic learning, while still being frequented by the English virtuosi who actively pursued advances in human knowledge. The coffeehouses would charge a penny admission, which would include access to newspapers and conversation.

That's in the 1650s. Then 60 years later in London the coffeehouses were involved in the rise of printed daily newspapers, they distributed them. (Several of these had advertiser in the name, and were more ads than news, because access to adverts in the early days was desirable and worth paying for.)

Later i’d just tip heavily up-front.

But then again I rarely work out at coffee shops or gas stations; usually only when stopping for a drink/meal anyway.

See also cybercafes/internet cafes.

1. It’s much cheaper if you’re regularly working 8-hour days outside your apartment.

2. I hated having to pack up my stuff just to use the bathroom or step out for a call.

The ones near me are secure and have free (passable) coffee, which is all I really need.

If anything this should "displace" (obviously it won't) some of the salary of waiters, who were before tasked to go yell at people with laptops, and now no longer need to do it. So it shouldn't theoretically take from the "money" for better coffee, but rather smooth out the atmosphere in the coffee shops

If it’s the latter, it’s not really rent seeking as much as trying to enforce an existing social contract.

> Extracting money out of everyday life to make our world less friendly and more expensive.

Isn't this what people are doing if they take up a seat in a cafe without buying things? They're making it so the cafe has to charge more to actual customers to survive.

This solution by itself would function like this, but you are leaving out a crucial point that it also doubles as a hub to advertise your café as a place that will welcome you as long as you pay.

The client can know beforehand which cafés are ok with you using it as a cowork space, and cafés make sure they don't have dead space, which in many parts of the world is very expensive.

Those who disagree with the system can always default to just paying for an actual coworking space.

Ever done the napkin maths for a coffee shop? It's not good. Especially with the way rents have been going...

In Canada a ton of Starbucks locations have closed. Other brands too.

You need to sell a ton of $5 coffees to pay rent, nevermind anything else... This idea that businesses are a common good and business owners should feel bad for not being destitute is why fewer people are opening them (at least here, in Canada).

The project could be catastrophic for cafes for unforeseen reasons, but those are surely not going to be the same as for Airbnb. You'd have to come up with a plausible threat scenario, otherwise your extrapolation of the analogy has no substance.

> You are always going to be better off catering to people who are just dropping in for 5-10 minutes over someone who spends several hours and maybe buys 2 things and jeopardizes a table which could have been used by 10 people.

I assume there's a balance. Never run a coffee shop but it seems that a lot of the sales are takeout, so exactly what does and doesn't go on in your seating might well be a secondary concern. If you prioritise folks staying for 5-10 minutes you might just end up with a lot of empty tables.