They seem to only be present in the big metro areas that attract a lot of tourists and immigrants who are familiar with the Starbucks brand and go for that out of habbit and know quality, similar to how McDonald's is so popular.
As you say, people go to Starbucks and McDonalds for familiar known quality and you should be happy for it. That way the tourists and immigrants stay out of your local cafe.
Edit: to be clear I'm not defending supranational billion dollar corporations here.
I as a tourist didn't elect your officials, so it's not on me.
This is so ridiculously optimistic and misinformed. In Poland’s cities, for example, the cafes mainly belong to chains like Costa Coffee and Green Coffee Nero, which act identically to Starbucks in terms of prices, quality, and range of drinks. There aren’t many independent cafes left, let alone ones with lower prices than a Starbucks. Similarly, in Helsinki the choice largely comes down to chains like Espresso House and Robert’s Coffee that are no different than Starbucks.
Maybe because Cluj is an overrated, overpriced Silicon Valley wannabe (sorry to be so blunt), so greedy old-town cafe owners jack up prices to match IT workers' and tourists' purchasing power. In Iasi for example, there's still small neighborhood cafes that sell affordable coffee, you just gotta avoid the old town and city center where all IT workers and tourists gather.
>then you have a very warped perception of Europe overall
Doubt it. Go to Italy, Portugal, Austria and many others, and it's full of small family owned cafes and traditional coffee houses serving just affordable coffee and cakes, not acting like a tourist trap or hipster co-working space.
“Go to Italy, Portugal, Austria and many others” The countries you mention by name are either southern European or Central European. You need more firsthand experience than that to make such blanket statements as "In any European city you'll find...", like you did in the OP.
Your idea that Starbucks is unusual in that people stay there for hours, while independent cafes are necessarily drink-and-go experiences, is horribly misinformed. Go to the Western Balkans, where there are few or no Starbucks around, but myriad independent cafes where men often spend half the day on a single purchase. The cafe has always been a community center in that region. And in areas with high unemployment, ageing demographics, and little money, they also play an important role as simply a way to get out of the house.
Seems like a lot of countries have figured it out. Just how you put it below that some old cafes serve as gathering centers instead of profit centers. Yes, if you're a business owner looking to maximize profit, then a cafe selling cheap coffee is not a good way to make a lot of money, and post '89 Romania is all about money and less about community.