Not having the internet in my new apartment has opened my eyes. It’s surprising to find out disconnected one feels without that constant electric buzz warming the eyeballs and softening the brain. At first I would wake up in the morning and find myself lost. What’s the news? What are my friends doing now? What’s going on tonight downtown? I have no idea. So I would immediately dash out to the local internet cafe to get my fixes (caffeine and otherwise).
There is a terrible downside to this: the expense. There are only so many times you can order a single $1 coffee after a week of incessant Wi-Fi use. I knew it became a problem when the “barista,” who rarely left the confines of her coffee cockpit, came over and asked if I would like a refill. Nope, I’m just heading out, but thanks anyway, I would say while frantically finishing up my most recent soon-to-be-ignored cover letter. And out the door I went, on the prowl for another unsuspecting cafe with the wireless junk.
So after a few days of feeling walking the streets, hauling my laptop in a cheap backpack (a monkey on my back?) from shop-to-shop, I decided to take it easy. Sure, the lighter wallet was a major factor, but perhaps, I thought, I can learn to get by without the ever-present feed.
I found myself waking up in the morning and not of worrying about what was happening now. Instead I boiled my coffee slowly and cracked open a book written in 1988.And there I would sit for an hour or so, breakfasting slowly and digesting my home-brewed Folgers crystals. I had plenty of time to reflect on my current situation (for good or ill) and how it came to be. But that’s all for another post.
It seems this free Wi-Fi phenomenon is the perfect metaphor for the assault the internet is having on traditional media, i.e. books and newspapers. Any cafe worth its salt wouldn’t dare to deny the technorati with a wireless link. Sure, it gets bodies in the door, and it was all the rage once the technology became ubiquitous. But the true cost to the vendor comes to life when he finds his seats full of $1 cups of coffee hooked up to his internet connection and no room for more customers. But if he ever gets rid of the internet connection, all of those sales will rush to the shop down the street, which still does offer internet. What to do?
Now look at modern newspapers. It was all the rage in the early 2000s to dump their contents online free of charge. Besides, if they didn’t, readers would rush to competing newspapers who did offer the goods. Advertising sales online don’t compare to their print counterparts and the newspaper is left with a room full of $1 coffees and the huge expense of producing quality journalism.
Ah, you say if we have such similar problems, then perhaps a solution for the former will work for the latter. This is true; but there is no solution for the Wi-Fi drain just yet. That is not to say the big companies are not working on it.
Desperate for a link-up I stumbled into a Starbucks on some desolate corner. Inside I fell forward. When the smiling hostess asked what I would like to drink, I asked in a raspy voice whether they had Wi-Fi. Sure they do, but first I have to buy a card from them, go online, create an account with AT&T mobile, register my card, say a prayer to God, buy two cups of coffee, and I’ll get two free hours of Wi-Fi per day. The last couple of requirements I made up because by that time my eyes had crossed. I spilled onto the street in a daze, trying to shake away the withdrawal hallucinations. I needed a hotspot and I new there would be another one around the corner if I just kept looking.
Will big companies like the Wall Street Journal ever get customers to pay and play by arcane rules for what has so long been free? I suppose, but only if they’re the only game in town. And by the way the newspaper industry is looking, that may be sooner than we think.
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One of the questions that has plagued me since the advent this digital age: are there really this many 
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