
In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop - PixelRobot
http://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-coffee-shop-take-over.html
======
tpatke
tl;dr - I shop a lot on Amazon. Therefore we no longer need shops. We have the
internet. Therefore we no longer need universities.

The nice thing about "in the future" kind of statements is that they are
impossible to disprove - especially when it is not specified how far in the
future we are talking about. However, I think we are a long way from having
gasoline delivered to your door and I always need to pop out for eggs, bread
and milk. I also might need a hair cut in the future. Clothes are unlikely to
be optional. My wife and I like to go to the movies. The kids like all kinds
of shops...

Sure, the internet is affecting retail sales and education. To what extent is
very difficult to predict but it is unlikely to be as drastic as the OP
suggests.

~~~
batista
There's also the problem of what will you do with the millions of people
working in retail economy, and with the assorted collapsed buying ability of
the middle to lower class.

We don't just keep jobs because we need them. We also keep them because we
need the distribution of wealth that they make possible --without a way to
ensure that, everything collapses. There can't be a billionaire without
millions of wage slaves.

~~~
MBlume
Guaranteed income. If the economy doesn't require everyone's labor, a bunch of
people just shouldn't work, so make sure they can eat and you're done. I don't
understand all this American obsession with jobs for everyone.

~~~
ctdonath
Promise free food, and suddenly way more people are demanding it than the
economy can support. Even if the economy can afford to give away food, society
stagnates because there is no incentive to produce nor advance anything of
value - be it making widgets, sweeping floors, or writing sonnets. Those who
do produce the wealth unproductive others live on will decide to not bother
(look up "go Galt"). We Americans are obsessed with jobs because we realize to
not work leads to death, be it individual or cultural.

~~~
khafra
> Those who do produce the wealth unproductive others live on will decide to
> not bother (look up "go Galt").

Has this ever happened? Has anyone at any wealth level ever simply stopped
making money because he was upset about taxes? I hear a lot of small-time sole
proprieters talk about it, but I've never heard reliable reports of it
actually happening.

~~~
karamazov
pg has a great essay on this: <http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html>.

A quick summary is that yes, people probably do choose not to do certain kinds
of work when taxes are too high, but not in the way that Bill O'Reilly tends
to advertise it - it's unlikely that someone is going to quit a high-paying
job because their marginal tax rate went up a point. However, if you're
undertaking an endeavor with a 5% chance of success, and a 30x tax-free payout
in case of success (relative to a safe option), your expected payout is 1.5x
with no taxes; 1.35x with a 10% tax rate; and 0.9x with a 40% tax rate.
Whether or not you'd take the risk in the first two cases varies from person
to person, but in the latter scenario, most people wouldn't bother; you'd have
better expectancy at a roulette table.

~~~
khafra
I appreciate the EV calculation. That would probably raise the marginal value
at which someone like Warren Buffett would buy a company, fix its problems,
and make it productive again. I doubt he'd shut down Berkshire Hathaway, or
that it would even slow down people intent on creating a startup; but it would
have a marginal effect.

Still a bit different from the classic "going galt," though.

------
georgemcfly
Universities will shrink to coffeshops? That's a very CS/math-centric
viewpoint. How are you going to do MITx with with Chemsitry? Physics? Biology?
Med School? Anything that requires specialized equipment? How will you do team
projects that require people to be in physical proximity to one another
(building complicated things, for instance).

Universities aren't going away. At most, some programs may become
"virtualized" but even then there's a lot of value add with college. They have
specialized libraries and librarians to help you find information that may not
be on the internet. They can afford expensive equipment and the people to take
care of them. It's often useful just to be around people in your same program
to talk about projects and learn from each other. It may not be $100k value
add, but that just means college will get less expensive and possibly shrink,
not that it will go away all together.

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justinhj
I'd love it if my office could be the coffee shop, or wherever I happen to be,
but so far I've found that after a certain level of complexity and team size
you pretty much have to be in the same room to make constant progress. I'm not
sure if this is a problem with software development in general or just in the
niche that I work within.

~~~
dsr_
My company does a SAAS product aimed at banks. Everybody except the office
manager telecommutes... sometimes. And everybody is in the office a large
chunk of the time.

It's good to be able to concentrate alone, AND it's good to be able to
collaborate in person.

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gregheo
"Coffee shop" as in "gathering place".

We have GitHub (social coding!) and now MITx (social learning?) I like the
idea. It's like the whole point of the Internet -- bringing people together --
has reached brick and mortar.

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EzGraphs
The comparison between the local state university and MITx is noteworthy. One
of the big arguments that I hear continuously for traditional colleges is that
they provide opportunities for research and are a place to make social
connections. While these opportunities are a very real incentive for top
schools, there are a ton of colleges and universities that add little value on
these fronts (especially relative to the cost).

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swalsh
This whole scenario is kind of silly. I can understand the simplification in
order to debate the merits of a free mass scale online education. However it's
not realistic. No two candidates will ever be the same. Everyone has different
levels of communication, most will think a little differently. If they're
programmers, there's probably different levels of understanding of language
concepts, or OOP concepts. In the scenario of one entry level candiate from a
brick and mortar institution vs the candidate from MITx. I'm going to choose
the person answers my questions most coherently, and writes the better code on
my sample problem.

I'm going to hire the employee who i believe will work with me better, and who
will produce a higher quality product. I don't care which school he/she went
to.

~~~
bayleo
It's a gedankenexperiment and he's invoking ceteris paribus. It's no different
than isolating the velocity of two balls rolling down a slope by opting to
ignore things like friction & drag in a physics problem.

------
LukeRB
This post raises a bigger question for the US: What will we do with all of the
vacant retail space that is abandoned as shopping continues to go online?

I wonder if there are companies out there working on innovative ways to fill
this space. After all, not _everything_ will be a coffee shop...right?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
There are many, many businesses other than retail shops that need space.

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verelo
"Book Stores Will Shrink to Coffee Shops"

This could turn out to be true, i just hope that as paper books turn into
history, we dont lose the quality associated with something going into print.
The process of having enough confidence to "Print it" is pretty intense, and
therefore the quality of a printed book v's any e-book or website will not
match up without a significant amount of effort (which i suspect for business
reasons wont get as much attention, because for business reasons you dont want
to screw up a paper book)

Its an interesting concept, i think we're just not there yet. People like
paper books, the only way they'll go away is if they become unaffordable or
just stop being produced (in which case i'm starting a publishing company
focusing on paper books!)

------
antidaily
Hopefully of the Amsterdam variety.

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mdasen
This somewhat assumes that the purpose of universities is to gain knowledge
useful to employers. While that might be _a_ purpose of it, universities are
also screening mechanisms.

This is something by people in educational economics. While I think the author
has a great point that we're looking to get workers who can get the job done,
that isn't necessarily how businesses hire. The benefits from education don't
just come in the form of increased human capital. Basically, you get bonus
points for having the degree regardless of what it means to your human capital
(there's a term for it that I can't come up with right now).

For a long time, we've heard of jobs that don't need a college degree, but
that you won't get hired for without it. In fact, that's the reasoning behind
getting a college degree in many majors where one doesn't have the intention
of working in that area.

College is also a place where people get sorted into social groups according
to smartness - social groupings that can continue well past college. After
college, you meet friends of friends you had in college who also went to
schools similar to your own and you get to build a network of people like you
somewhat regardless of your success in life.

Finally, the appeal of letters is great. If you're "John Smith, BS", you will
always be that. You will get the respect of being a college grad for the rest
of your life. In a world where things seem in flux, items that we place undue
weight on are comforting. Heck, the same can be said of going to a good
school. If you went to Harvard, you will always have gone to Harvard -
something very few people can say. No matter how much you fail at life in the
future, you have proven that you're the top by having gone there.

Getting a certificate of completion from MITx isn't the same for many of these
things. The fact that there aren't entrance requirements or limitations means
that it isn't a certification that you're the top rung of society - just that
you've learned some knowledge. Because it's so broadly available, it isn't
sorting you into a social grouping. If universities are for knowledge
transmission, the author is right - that these new offerings are wonderful.
While maybe they _should_ be for that purpose, I think that universities play
a broader role in our society (I'm not saying it's a good or desirable role,
just a role). They prove to others that I was accepted as not just someone
they could transmit knowledge to, but a really smart person well above what
would be needed to pass the courses. They connect me to other smart people who
will become my social group as well as professional networking group. They
make sure that no matter what I do in the future, I've proven that I'm one of
the smart ones - one of the elite. My neighbor with a high-school diploma may
make millions as a real-estate agent, but I'm a college grad! I can still feel
proud (and maybe a little smug) because someone has certified that I'm part of
the top of society - and no one has done that for him!

~~~
kiba
_This is something by people in educational economics. While I think the
author has a great point that we're looking to get workers who can get the job
done, that isn't necessarily how businesses hire. The benefits from education
don't just come in the form of increased human capital. Basically, you get
bonus points for having the degree regardless of what it means to your human
capital (there's a term for it that I can't come up with right now)._

I believe it's called signaling.

~~~
mitchellhislop
Yup - its a general economics type of theory:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)>

------
imperialWicket
Could this be extended to a need for startups or meetups that focus entirely
on internet-based education?

Something akin to a formal book club with paid/volunteer instruction. I'm
thinking about events like, "MyAwesomeEduStartup sponsors instructor
[someone]'s coverage of [some MIT xCourse]."

It would definitely be cool as a community service or meetup event. I think it
would be hard to get people to pay for this just yet, but maybe in the near
future.

------
lnanek
Just because he prefers to buy online doesn't mean other people do. Google
tried to sell phones online and it just didn't work, for example...

~~~
artsrc
Currently there is a complex and non-transparent pricing for phones purchased
bundled with a service. This is used maximize profit share, disguise cost and
create market power etc.

Google tried to challenge this model. This has nothing to do with whether
people buy from brick and mortar stores or online.

I bought my phone online disentangled:

    
    
        http://www.clove.co.uk/
    

But I could have bought it online entangled:

    
    
        http://www.virginmobile.com.au/shop
    

There are many things where I currently prefer buying online. And others where
I prefer brick and mortar. The online stores are getting better more quickly
than the brick and mortar stores.

------
Navarr
I certainly hope not. I _hate_ coffee.

------
batista
_There are two candidates: one from the local state school with an appropriate
college degree, a second with relevant MITx certificates of completion. Let’s
say all other things between the candidates are equal. Which should be chosen?
It’s true that an online education is not the same as the college experience.
The candidate who went to college probably enjoyed his experience more, but
how much is that experience worth to a potential employer? Unless he’s a
member of the same fraternity, probably not as much as the college candidate
would hope. And here’s the reality: the student debt of the college candidate
controls, to some extent, his salary requirements. Since the MITx candidate
appears to have the knowledge required, and has no student debt, he probably
can be hired cheaper._

Actually it's the inverse. The student debt accumulated will make the college
graduate more desperate to accept any wage offer, and more fearful of keeping
the job once there.

People hiring love this kind of dependance.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The debt burden makes the college graduate more desperate to work, but not for
any wage. There is a hard line below which the student is unable to make
payments and a softer line above that allowing for various qualities of life.
The key in the analysis is if the non-grad can under-price the college grad
near (or even below) that hard line for long enough to get entry level
experience and thus be treated as another experienced hire.

There is also something to be said for a self-starter who drives himself
through an online programme and comes out with a working understanding of a
topic.

------
rsanchez1
People romanticize coffee shops too much.

~~~
cryptoz
Could you explain what you mean? I've done my best work in coffee shops, hands
down. I've also had the most enjoyable time doing it. It's way nicer than a
library or an office or a chair at home. When you have a collection of other
caffinated people working near you on different projects, you are often more
motivated to work yourself. The atmosphere is ambient and doesn't offer much
distraction, unless you want it to.

I only get to spend about 3 or 4 hours / week in cafes these days (I have an
office job) but those are some of the best work hours I get. I wish I could
transition full-time to coffeeshops, and if I get a startup going I might try
it.

