Some years ago there was some debate about the rights of consumers to use the wifi in coffee shops. See my posts on Ghetto Wifi, Ghetto Wifi 2. As I pointed out at the time, the scarce resource for the coffee shop is not the wifi but the fact that the tables and power sockets are occupied for an extended period without making any further purchases.
Students in South Korea are now taking this to an extreme extent. Some of them appear to think it's acceptable to leave their laptops on the table while they go and eat somewhere else!
Coffee shop owners have differing views on how to manage this phenomenon (known as Cagongjok), especially as there are some wider social factors that are outside their control.
Kim Hojun, Cagong Culture (2023)
No Kyung-min, A portmanteau of cafe, study and tribe, the phenomenon offers a glimpse into cultural aspects of cafe-lingering in Korea (Korea Herald, 20 June 2023)
Juna Moon, 'Two laptops, six plugs': The South Korean cafes grappling with students who don't leave (BBC News, 23 August 2025)
Sasha Rogelberg, Starbucks asks customers in South Korea to stop bringing printers and desktop computers into stores as workers transform cafés into remote offices (Fortune, 11 August 2025)
No comments:
Post a Comment