I’d been working at WiFi-enabled cafés for the past several days in a row. I just love the feeling of the freedom of being able to work where I please, and the presence of WiFi hotspots at popular coffee joints is very much welcome.

My routine usually involves settling down at a table to check first if the WiFi connection is good before ordering my favorite Café Americano (I like it black). Then I usually work for a couple of hours—three hours max—half the time it’s surfing for ideas and leads, and half writing articles for my online publications and doing some minor web design and development work.

With this habit of mine, I wonder whether WiFi-enabled joints get to recoup their investment in setting up hotspots at all, if their WiFi business model relies heavily on the sale of goods instead of selling the WiFi service itself. For instance, where I come from, most cafés rely on third-party providers for their networking needs, so only a fraction of the revenue from the WiFi service—such as prepaid card sales—actually goes to the café. And since I have an unlimited subscription with the provider, the café doesn’t earn from my access at all, save from what I order from the counter.

So does the one cup of Café Americano that I order justify my three hours of stay at a café? I guess it’s still reasonable enough. It’s not like Starbucks gets crammed full of WiFi junkies surfing their time away without even ordering coffee and snacks. I’m part of the minority—the exception rather than the rule. If a café gets jammed full of people working three hours on their laptops with only a minimal purchase, then that’s the time they can worry about customer traffic not moving fast enough.

As it is, I’ll just sit and relax while sipping my long black. In a while I have to rack my brains for my next article idea.