Starbucks to give away free Wi-Fi tomorrow
- June 2nd, 2008
- 3 Comments
Starbucks will give away Wi-Fi starting tomorrow, June 3. Or:
When you register your Starbucks Card and use it at least once a month, you’ll receive two consecutive hours a day of complimentary Wi-Fi, courtesy of AT&T.
Not much to complain about here, really. Buy an elitist latte once in a while, and check the headlines. Like, say, that Mourinho is officially at Inter Milan. And it’s regular Wi-Fi, too, and none of this iPhone-only nonsense. (Can’t you just change the user agent?)
Starbucks motives are pretty obvious. With the price of living having gone up, as Ben Bernake said, “like whoa,” people may be less inclined to spend $4 on a sugar+caffeine drink. So, lure them with free Wi-Fi.
That said, may I suggest you bring a pair of headphones? The music playing at Starbucks is so depressing most of the time I’m in there, so supplying my own soundtrack is a necessity.
Thomas Murphy (Who am I?)
6 months ago
I guess they will say goodbye to some customers too.
Randy (Who am I?)
6 months ago
This is really weak on the part of Starbucks. The little indie coffee shop that is about 1/4 of a mile further up the road than Starbucks has better coffee, always free Wi-Fi and prices that are about 1/2 of Starbucks.
There are always VERY short lines at Starbucks but you are lucky if you walk in the indie shop and there are only 4 or 5 in line ahead of you. Starbucks time has passed. They will always have their die hard fans, but their monster growth is over and it isn’t coming back.
The guy that owns that indie shop is opening 3 more stores this year. According to him 2 of them will be within spitting distance of a Starbucks and the third is within 1/2 mile of another.
Nicholas Deleon (Who am I?)
6 months ago
Back in my school days, I preferred Mud Coffee (http://www.themudtruck.com/) to Starbucks, even though Starbucks was free with a meal plan. (Each meal plan came with a certain amount of campus dollars that could be spent on on-campus junk, and Starbucks was always packed.) And yeah, now that you mention it, every indie coffee place I’ve been to in the past few years had free Wi-Fi; what took Starbucks so long?
-na