My friend Gary McTaggart posted this picture to his facebook back in December 2015.
By exploiting Google's reverse image search I was able to find what was probably the source image used to create the captioned image: "Starbucks Has Free Wifi But This Is Too Much (10 Photos)".
Based on comments it is clear there is a significant percentage (and probably even a majority) who think that going to Starbucks and deploying a bunch of equipment to do your hobby is a bit absurd.
What could motivate these weirdos ?
Frankly, my major problem is that if you want to take a bathroom break who is going to protect your gear? Also, food and drink spills could be a problem. Luckily I live in the suburbs so I don't think theft and vandalism would be a big problem, but I suspect they would be threats in some areas.
PBS Newshour had a segment in their 2016-Jan-21 broadcast called "Hotbeds of genius and innovation depend on these key ingredients". In it we find this quote (with the emphasis mine):
| ERIC WEINER: The Viennese coffee house was a classic case of what's known as a third place. Third places, unlike work or home, first and second places, third places like this are places you go where you can converse with friends, and you can converse with strangers, and people who may not share your exact political point of view or your exact intellectual point of view. |
Where is the third place for people whose hobbies require non-trivial equipment?
| handheld | luggable | team | wtf? |
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The handheld hobbies can be done anywhere you have a comfortable enough chair (park bench, mall food court, coffee shop).
I filled the "team" category with sports, all of which require major amounts of flat open space. Some of these spaces are public (you can probably play frisbee in any public park). Others like soccer and baseball are usually played on a field rented from the city or county. Hockey requires an ice rink, but you can rent that too if your town has one.
Maker spaces appear to be the third space for some of the "wtf?" category. I suspect that they would embrace the creative passtimes from the "luggable" column as well.
Sailing has yacht clubs and races. Amateur racing has track days. Autocross has its parking lot events.
San Diego's 3rdspace seems somewhat more focused on entrepreneurship than on hobbies. (And $175/month membership seems a little steep).
Tabletop gaming probably would find refuge in a comic shop or indie bookstore. If there are other luggable hobbies that do not involve creation, I'd like to name them and speculate about where their third space would be.
Howard Tayler used to draw Schlock Mercenary from a table in a corner of the Dragon's Keep game store.
I personally use NGAA's Open Studio as my third place, although it does not bring me into contact with the broader public that you would find in a coffee shop. At least it's cheap ($60/year).
What kind of weirdos would you attract if you had an air-conditioned space with chairs, tables, and electrical outlets adjacent to foot traffic? The first place I can imagine would be an island in a shopping mall. Someplace where you can spend a couple of hours and wouldn't bat an eye if a random person sat down on the couch across from you and started discussing their favorite brand of paints, or just walked up behind you and watched over your shoulder until they get bored a few seconds later.
I still need to figure out a way to safely lug a 30" monitor. ($700? 
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