Comment by miohtama
9 hours ago
The solution is to bring back cybercafes, or cafes which were set up up to go online. Such culture existed in the 90s but was then ended by the widespread online accessibility by home ADSL and later mobile internet.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe...
South Korea has many pc cafes, so called pc bangs / pc방, and there are also many study cafes where you can work for long periods.
The 'problem' with those for remote workers is that you pay per minute/hour in a cybercafe - in a normal coffee shop you can just nurse one coffee for hours and pay a single low cost (and get a coffee).
I can't remember the name of it now but back in 2010s there was an 'OK' managed drop-in office space you could rent for £10 a day in central London - which came with free coffee and printing - I haven't looked at the prices lately.
Wow, I'd be curious about the details if you can remember.
I was working from cafes in London at that time, and I would have loved to find a place like that. I had to either use actual cafes (free besides getting a coffee and maybe a sandwich, limited privacy and security) or pay for a dedicated space, generally with too much tedious bureaucracy. Maybe I misremember, but to get prices as low as £10/day I think you had to commit to a large number of days per month. I don't recall anyone offering low prices a la carte.
Just looked up my email - and in 2012 I paid £10 4 hours in the Regus shared working space in central London - I think a 7 hour day might of been £12 but I don't have a full booking. From memory it was behind Bond Street - I was working for a small company in East London, and was taking the afternoon off to interview for another role. I wanted to be able to work right up until the interview and have somewhere to get changed into my suit, so didn't want to work from a cafe. I'd seen the offer in various 'business' magazines at the time, it wasn't brilliant, and I wouldn't have been happy their full time, but it was perfect for the day I needed it for.
Prior to that time we had been paying £330 a month for a desk on Dean Street Soho - but that was a monthly rolling contract as you say, and we'd just moved to some free space in Farringdon, where a friend was letting us use a desk (I think in part to make their office look busier).
There was a drop in place in East London that offered similar day prices back in 2010, as I went to look around it - but it was too noisy for me - was walking distance to the Silicon Roundabout - but I can't remember what it was called.
2 replies →
Cybercafes are already a big thing in SK, but why is the above comment downvoted? I, for one, miss net cafes very much. They used to be big in Greece, and I made many many dear friendships in small, cozy net cafes.
I can recount hilarious and even heartwarming stories; turns out that having a cafe (i.e. leisure space) with computers used by people in close proximity makes for dynamics and interactions that you cannot recreate with remote connections.