peeps sitting for hours taking up a plug + wifi in exchange for ~£$4. Hugely uneconomical for independents.
It's only uneconomical if enough potential customers leave because they can't sit down or I guess if they use a ton of power. Business Internet is not usage based, right? and you're buying that anyway...
One place near me instituted a "co working packages" which you were expected to pay a certain fee and that got you drinks, maybe a pastry and let you sit down for some amount of time.
I would go in there for a pastry from time to time and the place sometimes had one or two people on laptops in there, and had plenty of seats both before and after having this co-working policy. It's not a surprise, there are tons of cafes in walking distance and this was the only one that cared about charging people to sit there. They were all pretty similarly not at capacity regardless of "scarcities".
Then there's the cost of enforcement - what happens if someone causes a scene and doesn't want to leave? You have to pay staff for that that you might not have to otherwise. Same with software tracking minutes of wifi used.
You'd think that's the case but really, it depends.
It depends on what connection type you have, what country you're in, and how remote you are or aren't. Business grade fibre in a big city? Probably not going to be metered and you'll have bandwidth to spare. ADSL in the middle of nowhere? Almost certainly going to be metered and you'll have very little bandwidth.
It's only uneconomical if enough potential customers leave because they can't sit down or I guess if they use a ton of power. Business Internet is not usage based, right? and you're buying that anyway...
One place near me instituted a "co working packages" which you were expected to pay a certain fee and that got you drinks, maybe a pastry and let you sit down for some amount of time.
I would go in there for a pastry from time to time and the place sometimes had one or two people on laptops in there, and had plenty of seats both before and after having this co-working policy. It's not a surprise, there are tons of cafes in walking distance and this was the only one that cared about charging people to sit there. They were all pretty similarly not at capacity regardless of "scarcities".
Then there's the cost of enforcement - what happens if someone causes a scene and doesn't want to leave? You have to pay staff for that that you might not have to otherwise. Same with software tracking minutes of wifi used.