There is a fundamental law of the universe, often attributed to the late, great Robert Heinlein, although it is known to have appeared as far back as the early ’30s. That law states: “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” and is known by the acronym TANSTAAFL.
That law, being a fundamental law, applies to everything — including the provision of services meant as a convenience for customers. Like providing wireless internet (wi-fi) access. Now, a New York City coffee shop has started charging for wi-fi, and as we might expect, this is upsetting some folks — and some of these people have a sense of entitlement the size of the Greater Magellanic Cloud.
“If you thought living in New York City was expensive, now we must pay to take our laptops out at coffee shops. That’s not free anymore. That’s not a free right in our community,” Sidnye Unger, a social media creator, said in a recent TikTok video.
Unger shared a video of a new Wi-Fi policy at the Bedford Studio, a coffee shop and “collective workspace” in the West Village.
My friend and I were really taken aback by the Wi-Fi charge/membership at the coffee shop,” Unger told FOX Business via email.
“I have been [to] places that either have no Wi-Fi, or the password will be on the receipt after you purchase, or even having to continue to get a new password (buying) something every 2 hours,” she wrote.
First reaction to this: No, there is no free right to free wi-fi in your community or anywhere else. This is a service provided by a retail business whose purpose is to turn a profit for the owners. The provision of that service costs the business money. Small businesses, especially food service, typically operate on narrow margins; I know this from discussions with my father-in-law, who ran small cafeterias for almost 60 years.
These businesses are under no obligation to provide wi-fi and simply eat the cost. These are businesses, not Santa Claus.
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But it’s the bemoaning of the lack of a “right” to free wi-fi by an economic illiterate that’s bothersome here. There can be no “right” to something that requires someone else to pay for one’s exercising of that right. There is no “right” to health care, housing, or anything that requires one person to surrender a portion of their income or assets to fulfill someone else’s claim to the benefits. And there’s an obvious solution to the complaint these folks are making.
“If I am paying upwards of $8 on a coffee, it is really hard to justify paying more for the use of my own computer,” Unger added.
Well, here’s a thought: Buy a can of Folgers. Buy a coffee maker. Use your own computer in your own home. Take a little responsibility. Coffee shops aren’t obliged to subsidize your surfing the internet. And if you’re claiming that it’s difficult to justify paying to use someone else’s wi-fi while paying eight bucks for a cup of coffee, you really need to see a financial counselor and start making some better economic decisions.
