It's wild how Starbucks went from classic "third place" to the cutting edge of hostile architecture in a span of like a decade.
An underrated element of the 2010s Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy was that there used a reasonably comfortable place to sit and work with free WiFi and a power outlet every few blocks in every city in the country.
@mnolangray Yeah, the one on Spring St. in Soho, NYC, went from this to this a couple of years ago:
@mnolangray They have followed a similar long term path to McDonald's. I'm pretty sure that Ray Kroc never anticipated that some of his future restaurants would have to install blue lights to discourage drug taking in their washrooms for example.
@mnolangray Because the cities around them de-criminalized vagrancy and petty theft.
@mnolangray Now we have Wholefoods though
@mnolangray Now we have Wholefoods though
@mnolangray We need a new third place and we need it now
@mnolangray The one nearest my house took out two-thirds of the seating during COVID, and now they are closing. They’re replacing it with a brand-new drive-thru only building across the street.
@mnolangray This is actually why I don’t go there anymore. It’s funny too because the third place was literally in the employee manual when I worked there in the early 2000s.
@mnolangray I miss it's third place days. Good memories enjoying a Madeleine or a loaf of something with a little coffee. Listening to the music they'd play and see the CDs they'd also sell of the music sometimes. Vibes man. Can't have NOTHING 😭🤧
@mnolangray It’s easy—you can’t have nice unpoliced public space.
@mnolangray yeh that's what happens when you accidentally become a homeless shelter
@mnolangray Starbucks has made itself more welcoming for its paying customers, who are the vast majority of the population
@mnolangray That’s how the machine works. It takes localism and turns it to dust.
@mnolangray they started to take for profit more seriously
@mnolangray I remember in the early aughts I used to go to Barnes and Noble with my headphones and read Henry Miller in big cushy chairs and then one day they all just disappeared. Too many people vibing and not spending.
@mnolangray I remember when my sister lived in Seattle in the 90s as Starbucks was starting her complaint was the same: Unlike other coffee shops they only had high stools for fast throughput. So the comfy couch and table thing was just an interlude?
@mnolangray Was just thinking this while traveling through Europe. While I prefer local cafes, the Starbucks are still the third place approach, comfortable, and clean, and affordable. ☕️
@mnolangray @bryanrbeal we didn't know how good we had it in the 2010s with a comfortable, reliable spot with fast wifi and decent coffee on every block
@mnolangray Tell me more about this, I've made a studied effort to avoid Starbucks for my entire life.
@mnolangray This is the first I’m learning of “third place”
@mnolangray Pretty sure it happed right around when, suddenly, literally overnight, everybody somehow just knew that attempting to keep drug addict non-customers from your bathrooms was racist.
@mnolangray It's almost as if in order for third places to work as designed, everyone must have a functioning first and second place.
@mnolangray My cynical view is it probably coincided w/ the rise of the opioid crisis and new policies of leniency torwards vulnerable groups. That probably makes companies less inclined to be a place the public lingers around.
@mnolangray We can’t sit, stand, use the bathroom or really exist anywhere nowadays without spending money and we won’t stop fighting until that changes.
@mnolangray Third places can’t sustainably exist in a society that refuses to forcibly hospitalize its most challenging 0.5%
@mnolangray « cutting edge of hostile architecture » lol, so spot on
@mnolangray Good breakdown of how this happened: hbr.org/2024/06/how-st…
@mnolangray Starbucks is just proof that enshittification isn’t restricted to internet tech firms.
@mnolangray Popularized/commercialized the small walk up cafe vibe, but found a stronger shift toward drive thru’s to expand their reach everywhere Things like parking minimums, single use zoning, and road design, have basically made such cafes impossible in large swaths of America
@mnolangray It's a quite the loss. And I think it's reflective of a darker shift in American life where all activities can be done from home, in isolation.
@mnolangray It's what you get when you tolerate violent homeless even a little bit. Third places are for high trust societies only.
@mnolangray there was so clearly supposed to be seating here :( x.com/notbenpeterson…
@mnolangray there was so clearly supposed to be seating here :( x.com/notbenpeterson…
