Walking Paper

If Starbucks junkies want wifi they have to pay T-Mobile a usurious fee, but not for too much longer. Starbucks is ditching T-Mobile and partnering with AT&T which creates a nice little Starbucks, iTunes Music Store, AT&T, iPhone niche. A result of this switch is 2 free hours of wifi per day for people that use Starbucks loyalty cards. Or maybe 2 hours per loyalty card regardless of who is using it. I’m already thinking how the system is going to be gamed.

This will likely result in more people putting money on Starbucks cards and more people visiting Starbucks locations. The program must be the result of Starbucks learning from libraries and other sensible places that offer free wifi. I wonder how much traffic Starbucks would divert from libraries if they offered unlimited free wifi. Whatever the case, I’ll stick with my local favorite.
[photo credit]