Starbucks sets its own Independence Day: free WiFi for all starting July 1st
By Darren Murph 
posted June 14th 2010 6:22PM
posted June 14th 2010 6:22PM
[Thanks, Paul]
posted June 14th 2010 6:22PM
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inb4 comments about hipsters.
@paulodourado
you mean the people who sit at starbucks, pretend to be doing real work on their electronic devices and love the smell of their own farts?
@GeneralThade
it's about time. starbucks was dating itself, not to mention painting itself as a profiteer, by not giving unfettered wi-fi access like almost all other coffee shops do these days.
@paulodourado
I thought Hipsters like free trade coffee, and I doubt they would want free WiFi.
Anyway, it's about damn time Starbucks gives free WiFi, they charge enough for one drink that it's just robbery when they ask you to pay $3 for 2 hours of WiFi access.
@paulodourado
Who has the money AND the time for a two hour StarBucks visit anyway?
@tklr08
well hello there mister market-economy, what's that you say? Oh supply and demand aye? Oh so the company can ask anything they want and there are actually people stupid enough to pay for it and fork that money out of there pockets? Well let them be, that's how the system works! SMILE :D JOY :D HAPPINESS :D
-The End-
Terrible Coffee... Stop burning your damn beans and trying to cover them up with "flavor shots". Wile your at it, stop raping out pocket books. Your only attracting Hipsters.
I'll stick with Timmies.
@thisNthat Students
@thisNthat
Ive got the 3 bucks just not the 2 hours to spend sitting in Starbucks on my laptop.
@tklr08 starbucks never charged for Wifi....AT&T and previously T-Mobile did.
@paulodourado
Painting all Starbucks customers as a bunch of collar popping hipster douche bags stopped making sense around 2002. Starbucks has been infiltrated by the Dunkin Donuts set. You are more likely to see cops, soccer mom's, old people and sadly, children as you are to see some morose skinny jeans guy tapping a screenplay into his MacBook.
Oh, yipdeedoo. One whole day. Like I can't go to three dozen other coffee shops that actually make good coffee and sit there if I wanted to and get free WiFi all day, every day.
Starbucks doesn't seem to realize that they're not in the wireless service business. They're in the coffee business. Time for them to get refocused. Free WiFi is what makes people want to sit there and keep drinking coffee, not the other way around.
WiFi is so important to so many people, regardless of whether they're being productive or fiddling around with their gadgets, that if a coffee shop doesn't offer free WiFi access, people just won't patronize their store. They'll simply go somewhere else and pay for coffee and food. That's what I do, and I'm certainly not alone. Starbucks loses. Besides, who wants to sit there and worry about how much their WiFi usage is costing them or how much time they have left?
People might say, well, they charge for it so people won't just sit there all day. First of all, not many people can afford to sit in a coffee shop all day, day after day... most people have jobs and families and responsibilities that prevent them from doing that to begin with. Secondly, what difference does it make if a dozen people sit in there all day and use the WiFi, or if two hundred people each sit there for a shorter time to use it and leave? One way or another, the WiFi is getting used and it's not costing Starbucks or these coffee shops any more either way. Whether a dozen people take a bucket of water or two hundred each take a cup, the "water" is being consumed just the same and it all balances out in the end.
Starbucks should quit acting as though giving us a cup of something that's in abundance for free and accessible in so many other places is some glorious press-worthy gift simply because they're opening up the gates for one stupid day.
LOL... I produced this great rant above and then I realized I misread the article. I thought Starbucks was going to offer free WiFi for only one day, not ongoing starting on a particular day.
DOH! My bad. Well, in retraction, hats off to Starbucks... they've finally seen the light.
Now if they can just figure out how to make a better cup of coffee...
for one day or forever?
@GeneralThade I'm guessing since it says starting on July 1st that it means forever. I hope :D
@Engadget Editors
either all of you guys never go to starbucks or you just don't pay attention. I've worked at starbucks for about 15 months, and wifi has been completely free since at least January if not earlier. And prior to that it has been two free hours since at least when I started.
And starbucks isn't providing AT&T and iPhone customers with free wifi, AT&T is. The wifi here is either a single or double AT&T 3g expresscard depending on the location.
That being said, the link to free wifi is a really small grey text link below a big distracting banner. They're bastards at hiding it.
Further more, I'd rather not read about starbucks while I'm reading engadget on my break. VERY much defeats the purpose.
@GeneralThade What better way to celebrate Canadian dominion over America? We order Starbucks to provide free wi-fi in celebration of Canada Day. It is so decreed!
http://standingonguard.com/index2.html
@The Dead Marxist Trio: http://www.engadget.com/exclude/starbucks
its about time
@victorstuber
thank the coffee gods!
@SolidSnake
You obviously, have never had a proper cup of unburned coffee.
This will be cool for mobile device obsessed folks like us
Whoopty freakin do!
Well actually... Starbucks has provided Free WiFi to registered Starbucks Card users as well, not just AT&T Customers.
There's gotta be a catch. Cause people at Starbucks with a laptop pretty much run their business while they are sipping that cup of Java.
@recharged95
Yeah: you have to pay absurd prices for shitty coffee.
Canada day!
Your coffee's price pays for it.
A Macbook next to some Starbucks coffee.
Heh.
@Prevacator
While on Facebook.
I'm gonna get down ranked for this but...
The pic is of a typical Mac user showing off at Starbucks.
@tklr08
It might just be done as a joke, but the kids of idiots who say people only go to Starbucks or use Macs are for "status" wouldn't get it. All of my Macs were desktops, so when I got an MBP recently, I made it a point to have a friend take a picture of me in starbucks, holding a sbux cup next to the MBP. Some people actually have a sense of humor.
And where I live, $1.85 for a cup of coffee doesn't confer status or imply that you're a billionaire.
@UnixSystemsEngineer
'kinds' of idiots, of course. heh.
@UnixSystemsEngineer
"sbux" ? Really?
Geez, people these days...always inventing pointless abbreviations...
@Joseph9307 Yeah, out of that entire response (even the bit about "kids" versus "kinds", heh) the "sbux" part is what stood out. Wow.
@Joseph9307 Um, sbux is the company's stock ticker symbol. pointless maybe, made up not so much.
I thought they already had this, but I could use some free wifi with my tall skinny vanilla latte
@Edobe actually I'm %100 sure I've used free wifi at starbucks many times.
@Edobe Maybe you has teh magic starbucks?
This is great news!
This should be breaking news
iPad owners are still unable to connect to free ATT wifi in any Starbucks.
@Godfather If you have a WiFi-only iPad, you will not have access to it because you do not have an AT&T account. WiFi+3G iPads, like the iPhones, have access to AT&T WiFi because they have AT&T.
@aschettler
FAIL.
It's almost free now, you have to spend like 5 bucks a month or something like that on their card. Seeing as that I am not an asshole and end up spending money at whatever coffee place I visit that offers internet, there is really no change for me (one of the non blood sucking leeches of the world who refuse to patronize business that provide things we like)
You're not truly a Mac user until you have sat in Starbucks drinking coffee while pretending to do real work.
As long as you carried a positive balance on your starbucks rewards card ($0.01) you had free access.
They are just following the lead. Everyone's going to Panera nowadays where you get free WIFI and decent food, real porcelain plates and cups, along with good coffee.
@Philipp123
And Panera has given free wifi to anyone for years. Ive parked in my car a few times out side of Panera and used their free wifi.
@KGB
I knew it!, the KGB is using open hotspot for their hideous purposes.
:-P
@Philipp123
Personally, I prefer Atlanta Bread Company (I find their coffee to be better), but alas, neither exists where I live now.