Hot take on coffee shops

I think they should all go back to being places where you can

My hot take is that most cafes have accidentally become co-working spaces, and neither side wins from it. The baristas are less likely to craft your drink well when they're being treated as background furniture for a six-hour Zoom call, and the customers aren't getting the actual experience of coffee culture — which used to be about community and conversation, not Wi-Fi reliability.

I miss those spots where people actually looked up from their screens. Now every cafe has the same three tables with outlet strips taped to them and a 'laptop policy' sign that no one enforces because enforcing it would lose revenue. It feels like we've optimized for throughput instead of experience, and the result is everywhere serving mediocre drip while everyone sits