Read up on the history of cafes. This is what they historically were—places for people to be, not grab and go. If a coffee shop owner wants grab and go customers, they’re a glorified vending machine. (The article notes a conversation-versus-quiet dynamic that I can better empathise with.)

The problem isn't laptops, it's people being assholes.

Obviously independent coffee shops can't do that, so if you want to sit in a coffee shop all day working on your laptop, try to pick a large chain, instead of an independent.

I'm probably missing something obvious, but how does this work? What is the purpose of keeping the loss-making stores running?

A friend of mine is a middle manager at a retail kitchen goods chain you've probably heard of. I've heard from him that many of their stores are always struggling to break even, and that most of the business is supported by a small number of stores that do an outsized amount of business.

These sorts of submissions have made me self-conscious about going to non-Starbucks to get any work done, heh.

hah... Living in Spain right now.. That attitude wouldnt fly

It seems if you don't want people to hang out, then don't have seating?

How I see it this is a problem for the providers of the cafe service to solve, not the customers.

But we don't even have to guess. Big businesses that are very careful about monitoring things like this, such as Starbucks, actively encourage laptops (with tons of power, wifi, rows of single-person desk tables) so maybe your intuition about what is profitable is just wrong? I mean you've thought about it for ten minutes and were already coming into the situation annoyed because you want to sit down and someone else was there, and Starbucks are running this business full time with I would guess people dedicated to thinking about this kind of thing.

I'm more inclined to believe their reasoning on it.

Sorry, did I say something to offend you?

For reference, typical Switzerland prices are:

instant, homemade: $0.20 Keurig/Nespresso, homemade: $0.50 supermarket: $2 bakery/coffee-to-go-place in a train station: $4 nice café: $6 Starbucks: $8

So what exactly would I be paying the extra $2 ($6-$4) for when ordering at your café? Assuming here that it all tastes the same to me - after all, if I really cared, I just made it myself.

Presumably the owner would actually have asked your mother or whichever other adult is with you, though.

If they had signs stating their policy clearly upfront I would accept it, but if not, in the cultures that I know the purpose of a coffee shop is exactly to sit there for quite a while. I'm in Germany and I used to live in the US for a decade. If I go to a real Italian coffee shop (i.e. the owner is an Italian), of which there are quite a few, I see people sitting and chatting for long times, an hour is not unreasonable at all. They don't order much after the initial purchase either.

Also, the entire history of coffee shops is that they are places of meeting people, not vending places. So if a particular coffee shop wants to have a "10 minutes only" policy I'm certainly fine with it, everybody can lead their business as they wish, but to what I know this is against all expectations, so it should be stated right away.

For laptop policy it depends more on the local context and I would not always expect to see a sign if they don't want it, but just the acceptance of larger amounts of time spent sitting there alone is a more global thing I would think taht cannot be easily deduced just from looking at a place.