The intolerance of "charging" for charging laptop and smartphone in coffee shops in Dumaguete

In Dumaguete when you go to most coffee shops or restaurants it seems that they punish you for charging your laptop or cell phone, even only for one hour.

I must state that in my almost 19 years of travelling in the Philippines, it happens only in the customer-unfriendly Dumaguete.

Most of coffee shops here charge you for charging your device, ranging from P10 to P30 for ONE hour.

Now, you are a regular customer in a certain coffee shop, you consume regularly, you go there with your family, again, you consume and they have the courage to charge you a fee for plugging your device.

So they make money not only on what you consume but also on the electricity you are using. I find this intolerant and ridiculous and not customer friendly.

I travelled all over the Philippines from North to South, from East to West, to bog cities, to small cities. I have experienced this only in Dumaguete.

If you are a Digital Nomad (a person who makes a living by traveling and working online) probably Dumaguete is the wrong place to be.

I can mention a particular coffee shop/restaurant who as the courage to charge a hefty P30 for one hour of charging. The name is Qyosko and is located in Santa Rosa Street.

If you want to know about the cleanliness of their comfort room, no words, just see it and smell it by yourself. Not even worth a P1 fee for the electricity.

Other establishments even put scotch tape on the outlet so that you can’t even plugin your device.

Note: I just want to make sure that readers understand that the Philippines is a beautiful country to be, nice and friendly people, but Dumaguete is getting worse by the week.

 

As always it's a matter of supply and demand - if you don't want to pay for their electricity, you don't have to buy it, just charge your stuff at home. In case of emergency PHP 10 is still a small price to pay for the convenience vs. going back home... I also guess they don't really do that for earning money, but to prevent people from taking up a whole table for hours while sipping a single coffee for PHP 80 or so. If you're a small place with just a few tables, a few laptop workers that occupy all your seating space while not consuming much can quickly hurt your business.

I could be considered what you call "Digital Nomad" and as such, I do not rely on power outlets in coffee shops as a rule. I come with a charged notebook that lasts more hours than I care to work in a single day, and can even charge my phone from that if need be. Having that said I wouldn't be sad either if the local coffee shops finally would get some competition from Starbucks While their coffee is prohibitively expensive, I've yet to see one where they charge for electricity...

 

I wonder how many members here, would allow neighbours to come in their house and charge their stuff for free?

 

Hello Jack,
We are customers in the coffee shops, we not just sit there and charge our devices.

Hi Jens,

it would be ok to pay P10 for charging but P30 is a rip off. There is a balance on everything.
I we do the math about p30/hr. it would be P240/day = P7200/month.
I don't think that a laptop or cellphone uses this amount of electricity.

Again, is a matter of balance, the employees must able to have common sense. If you are a regular customer they should not charge you.

If they see an abuse then it's a different story.

 

Maybe that is so for you BUT there are many that will sit all day and only ever buy 1 or 2 coffees Just to Add I have a 19 year old daughter that does it often with Friends

 

The inference was on FREE Electricity, we would not it Free so why should we expect to get it free

 

Maybe but the profit 1 or 2 coffees is not going t offset the cost of loading, Better the owner said free charge on meals bought or 10 peso for coffee drinkers