Have you faced Kindle prejudice?

 

Have you experienced anti-Kindle prejudice? New York Times writer Nick Bilton has. On Monday, he went to a Manhattan coffee shop, placed an order, sat down and pulled out his Kindle. As he explains in a blog post at the paper, this is what happened next:

I barely made it a sentence into the e-book I was reading before an employee of the coffee shop came by, stood over me and said, “Excuse me sir, but we don’t allow computers in the coffee shop.”

I looked up at him with an incredulous look and replied, “This isn’t a computer, it’s an e-book reader.”

He then told me that the “device” in my hand had a screen and required batteries, so it was obviously “some variation of a computer.”

And it wasn't just Manhattan, or the Kindle. At a Brooklyn sandwich shop, he ran into a similar debate about the use of his iPad. Bilton continues:

The employee there said no computers were allowed between noon and 3 p.m. After another lengthy defense of e-readers and screens, I lost, again, and sat there resentfully picking at my sandwich.

There is a certain type of person who works with a computer at a public shop -- a coffee shop, or a sandwich shop -- and stays for hours. I have, on occasion, been that person. I tend to feel bad about taking up space for too long, and then buy too many cups of coffee, after which I get so jittery I have to leave, which means I don't take up space for all that long after all. But apparently my pathology isn't so common in New York. In fact, the problem of computer-using squatters is so bad that the Brooklyn sandwich shop has posted signs that read, "No computer use at this table, Noon-3pm."

Signs and guilt aside, it seems that someone who's got his nose buried in the 1,088-page "Under the Dome" in paperback is as likely to stay put reading as the person who becomes absorbed by  Stephen King on a Kindle. 

If computer use is the problem, I can see why the iPad, with its other features, might set off alarms. But why the zero-tolerance for the Kindle? Have you been some place where your Kindle wasn't welcome? Have you been told your Kindle is not allowed?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: James Joyce is displayed on a Kindle DX, held by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos at a press conference on May 6, 2009. Credit:  Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

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Comments

[Claudia Rosas-Abella]

I have never encountered being snubbed because of my e-reader. I have gone to many places and take out my Nook and no one even looks my way. To me it is the same as reading a paperback novel. But I have gone places where I sit down to study, have coffee with friends and the shop stares at us because we are taking too much space and not consuming enough. I believe we are becoming a rush society. That is why I think kids don't like to read now a days....there is no time.

[Danny - Kindle Cases]

What the hell! Your are a paid up customer - why can't you choose to read your kindle in their establishment. It's no different to reading a book or is that the next step. Are coffee shops around the world going to ban reading?

Next they won't allow slupring or spending too long with your coffee.

Carolyn, i would stop frequenting such coffee shops and if any young coffee shop owners are listening - advertise your coffee house as kindle friendly. When the new Kindle comes out at the end of this month you will have a deluge of new customers!

[Katharine Weber]

I don't have an e-reader, but I fly a lot, and I have been very aware that I get to keep reading my book while sitting on the runway, sometimes for hours, while people near me with e-readers are made to turn them off and put them away as if they were any other piece of electronic equipment.

[David Abrams]

Kindle unkindness? No, I haven't been on the blunt end of that kind of snubbery yet. Then again, my baby K. is only a month-old; we're still getting to know each other. The only prejudice I see are the indirect glares from the internet, highlighting the odd division between new reading-device owners ("Check out my cool new gadget!") and old-school paper-and-glue bibliophiles ("You can have my copy of the Gutenberg Bible when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers"). I keep reminding myself that, until a month ago, I was one of those paper-and-glue snobs who wouldn't have DREAMED of ever owning a Kindle (my kewl new gadget!!). Now I am "one of them." I have assimilated.

I am mystified, however, by the ignorance of the coffee-shop employee. Yes, a Kindle is a computer--in the same way that our brains are computers, full of electrical synapses and faulty memory. If the real goal is to move customers in and out of seats, why not just charge an hourly rental fee for a chair at Starbucks?

[Jennifer Morales]

Wow, that is super rude. A normal restaurant or coffee shop might have a case for a culture of limited seating if all their seats were filled and they needed some turnover. That just seems totally unacceptable in my mind.

[Kindling]

No sweat. It's not like there's a shortage of coffee houses. Go somewhere else. Forever.

[Richard Sullivan]

I am an author of three books, as well as an ex-waiter, and obviously you put-off gizmo junkies think you have the right to commandeer space in a business establishment just because you bought a sandwich, or a coffee. Go to the library, the park, or just stay home. As I wait 15 minutes in line for a table, and see you sitting there, your sandwich barely touched yet, using any electronic device, or even reading a paper book, when I have to be back at work in 20 minutes, I stand in awe of your sense of entitlement.

[------------------------]

Hey Richard "author of three books" Sullivan, why don't you go to the coffee shop in the article or take your sandwich back to work where you belong. It's not up to you who gets to "commandeer space" in the coffee shop. That's up to the business owner.

[cc]

Last year at the high school I work at, I was an SAT assistant for a student. When they completed the designated part of the test, they were free to read until the next section started. The first day, I pulled out my kindle and read. The second day, I was told that I could not read my kindle. Same lame excuse---no electronic devices. I was offered a magazine and I turned it down. The third day, I just sat there.
I know I will have this same issue next year. I think I will take a personal day instead of helping with the testing.

[Joey]

"I stand in awe of your sense of entitlement."

Cognitive dissonance is a fascinating subject of study.

[Kurt Hoppe]

Definitely run into problems all the time with my Kindle when on an airplane, even though it is smaller and weighs far less than that hardcover copy of "War and Peace" on the lap of the guy across the aisle from me...

[adinasi]

These establishments may be losing money to those customers who plop down in a seat for hours, maybe have 1-2 coffees, and keep traffic from moving in and out of their establishment. Simple solution: don't patronize them. If their business drops, they'll change their policies.

[Michele]

I read books, I buy books, I buy coffee. I don't buy books at Barnes and Noble now because I can't find a place to sit and look at them because all the seats are occupied by either people using their laptops (and the stores power sockets) or just sitting and reading magazines, books, whatever, or worse (in the cafe) conducting interviews. There are also certain coffee shops I won't visit because all the tables are full of workers who have set up mini-offices, and have 1 cup in front of them. Some businesses (read corporations) have made decisions to welcome certain customers (with electronic media) to hopefully increase sales. Others have chosen not to.

[Queixa]

Hasn't happened to me yet, but I would not sit there resentfully picking at my sandwich. I would get my money back and go somewhere I could sit, read, and eat. There's more than one place to get a sandwich.

[L]

cc, I fail to see what the problem is with no electronic devices during the SAT testing. Once you knew this was the policy, there was nothing to stop you from bringing a paper book to read on the third day. Why would you sit without reading just because you can't read your Kindle?

[Ironica]

Hmmm... do they prohibit phones, too? Because my G1 is much more of a "computer" than my Kindle.

I understand their logic to some extent, but it makes far more sense to impose a hard time limit for the seating than to try to limit "electronic devices", as those devices become more ubiquitous.

BTW, I haven't ever been told to put away my Kindle on a plane. I ensure that the wireless is off, just like I do with my phone, and continue reading. No flight attendants have ever given me a hassle about it.

[jack]

Cry about it some more.

[Laura]

At 25 I'm just on the edge of "kids now a days", and not only do I have a Kindle, I got it because I read about a book a week. I'll take 'em in print, on the screen, in e-ink, whatever. I just like to read.

As far as the Kindle goes, you can carry around thousands of books on there and it's the same weight as (or in the case of the newest version, lighter than) a standard paperback. Moving is so much easier now, as I've only got about a quarter of the printed books I used to lug around.

If this happened to me in a coffee shop, I would never, ever go back. Voting with your dollars is the only way to make a point, today.

I'd fill out a comment card at the store, I'd post about it on Yelp, and yes, I would Twitter about it, too. You can be a cranky old "Letters to the Editor" writer at any age now, thanks to the internet.

[Zee]

Boo hoo hoo! Waah waah! Sad-faced yuppies everywhere!

[New Kindle]

Just ceasing to patronize the shop you mentioned, may not be the best approach. Better if you have time is to report them to local authorities and find out from there the real reasons why simply reading your Kindle in a coffee shop is not allowed. This will also help other people like you.

[Joe]

Put that ebook reader in a book like cover.
problem solved.

[tillzen]

A conspicuous consumer meets a self-important cashier ... or as they call it on the coasts, Thursday.

[Tippy]

The same thing happened to me with an actual book many years ago in Manhattan. It was a large pizza place next to my school, where the owner knew many of us students by name. One day after finishing my slice, I pulled out a book and immediately the owner came over and told me it was the lunch rush and he needed the table. I was so embarrassed, I never went back.

[Gilda]

They'll really have a heart attack when the new Kindle comes out, in that it has experimental web browsing...in black and white, mind you, but web browsing all the same.

[Arnold]

Gilda, the "experimental web browser" has been included with Kindle since the first version.

[Heisenberg]

There should be an Earth sign that says "No Kindles Allowed."

[Noodle]

Quote= "They'll really have a heart attack when the new Kindle comes out, in that it has experimental web browsing...in black and white, mind you, but web browsing all the same.

Posted by: Gilda | August 05, 2010 at 12:02 PM "

The Nook already has web browsing. I understand the shop owner's position - I can sit and browse the interwebs on my Nook the same as a laptop. If they made the business decision to ban laptop use, also banning Nooks makes sense. The Kindle doesn't have the same range of functionality as the Nook, but I don't expect coffeeshop owners to necessarily be in the loop on all technological innovations.

[Eric Middleton]

Perhaps they will let you use their Can-and-String to make a phone call.

[Clare]

I have been in many cafes where I could not get a seat because someone with a computer --or books is taking up a table for hours on end with only a purchase of a cup of coffee. My Barnes & Noble took the comfy chairs away from an area where people did that. The people who are there to have lunch or to buy books can't get a table.

Quit whining and read somewhere else.

[Bem]

“This isn’t a computer, it’s an e-book reader.”

NERD ALERT

[jackieT]

My wife won't let me read my Kindle in bed. How tragic is that?

[Big Jim Slade]

It's called class envy. I've heard some political parties are almost entirely based upon it.

Some newspapers too!

[LT]

What is this country coming to?
In many states, you can carry in your gun, but not your Kindle?

[Marv]

It's New York and it's overcrowded. They can't have people taking up spots for hours like here in LA

[SaMo]

If you want to read, go to the library. The coffee shop is not for lingering endlessly. Unless of course they want you to stay and take up their space all day for $2.99. Their house, their rules.

[Watsonsmom]

Seems to me, this is an easy fix. As a former restaurant employee and a currant Kindle owner. Any coffee house could set aside a designated number of seats for "computer/reading" use and use the rest for whatever.. same as "take out" parking spaces outside of a restaurant. Easy.

[Arthur Cantu]

Fortunately Star Bucks has always been OK with me reading from one of their comfortable chairs. Sounds like the coffee shop you went to has "issues" with the technology. I would speak to management about your complaint or write a letter to the editor for the newspaper in that area.

[Gene Venable]

Next time someone accuses you of having a computer, ask them to hold out their hands. If they have watch on, it's a kind of computer. So is a sun dial, for that matter, though you are less likely to find them on people's wrists.

[Truth]

Those coffee shops are crazy! You should have asked if you were allowed to take phone calls, since technically your cellphone is a computer since it has "a screen and requires batteries"! anyways I would have also told that dude or lady, what makes a computer is having a ALU, Control registers, and Memory which every device now has from that cash register to the machine that is make the coffee!

[Brigid K]

I have a Kindle, but I've never been told to put it away -- until I was on an airplane. They said that all electronic devices needed to be put away because of interference on takeoff and landing. I said I had the WiFi turned off, but they insisted that it could cause problems, so I put it away. I don't know whether that's true or not, so I erred on the side of caution. (Who needs headlines reading, "Southwest jet brought down by Kindle owner"?)

I'm a writer with a full time job and a toddler, and I often escape to Starbucks to get a few chapters down on paper. I'm usually there for a couple hours, and until free WiFi kicked in last month, I was paying for the WiFi service. I buy a drink every hour (approximately), and no one has ever given me a hard time for the amount of time I stay there.

I will say that since WiFi has become free, the number of "squatters" in my local Starbucks has more than doubled -- and most of these people don't even have a cup in front of them. As more and more people take their jobs on the road with them and rely on WiFi hotspots, I think we'll see many more signs in the common sandwich shop, saying things like, "Table time limit, 45 minutes."

[Anil Atluri]

I never did meet with Kindle prejudice. But there were instances when the store owner or employee gives you that look 'that's enough' you may now leave.
Last evening, I was forced to occupy a table at a local bakery to give a demo to my potential client..under the glaring looks of the owner / employee duo. I bought a Coke and a few cookies and hurriedly left. It is but natural..you can't harm their potential business. I seen no reason why they shouldn't ask you to move when you are not giving them business especially during their busy hours.