Hi Martin,

thanks for the excellent summary of the state of cafe working in 2016. It makes sense I suppose that times are changing. If you remember the 2000’s there where internet cafes everywhere – especially in the backpacker areas – and now there are hardly any. Feels a bit different in Vietnam as there is a lingering-in-cafes culture here, and more cafes continue to open. I will no doubt be back in Bangkok later this year so look forward to seeing what has changed!

Quick points:

– I agree with the comment above by Dave. In Bangkok, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to work in cafes.

– My guess is that it’s a combination of smartphones and general economic development. Just a few years ago, there were lots of local Thais who went to cafes with laptops to use internet. But now it’s much more rare, since 3G is good and most average people just use their smartphones.The only ones still in cafes with laptops – both foreigners and Thais – are the more hard-core users: students or digital workers. And most cafes don’t want that type of person sitting there holding a table for 2 hours when the economy is good enough that there’s always the possibility of new people rotating through every 30 minutes. Even empty cafes throw you out pretty quickly. People on laptops aren’t profitable and aren’t good for the decoration 😉

– I’ve been to all the cafes on your list here and quite a few others (been in Bangkok a long time haha!). In a very big area of the centre, most cafes just aren’t so good anymore for laptop work of more than 30-45 minutes. Outside of the (big, big) centre, it’s better; if you get out to the neighbourhoods less well-known by foreigners, you can find adequate-but-not-great places, but it’s much less international, tough to get by with just English, and I’d guess that not many people reading this would want to go there or ever be more than a few kilometres from a BTS or MRT station.

– The only cafe where it’s really possible still to spend more than 3 hours working without massive guilt and stress (and to be able to return a second time without a disguise!) is Too Fast To Sleep. But wifi can be dodgy if it’s crowded, and for me personally at least, it’s not my scene: I don’t like sitting between students running around, working on massive art/architecture projects, student meetings all yelling at each other simultaneously, etc.

– The Bangkok cafe scene is a big contrast with other Southeast Asian cities. Everywhere in Vietnam is still great for digital cafe use, Bali is good, even Laos and Cambodia are quite good in the nicer parts of the cities. I wonder if Bangkok is ahead of the curve and those places will gradually follow as the times change…

– A sign of the times: Factory closed its old location. It opened a new place 100 metres south (towards Siam) on the same side of the same street. New place is much nicer, trendy industrial design, great creative drinks and food, everything a digital worker would love… but there are no chargers, no sockets. They told me that it’s on purpose: they don’t want digital workers. Someone spending even 30 minutes there is starting to be a problem, they said, and they definitely don’t want anyone working a laptop there longer than one hour. At their previous location, they had wall sockets to charge and were happy to let you sit there for 2 hours.

The times are changing…

Hi Dave, thanks for taking the time for the detailed comment!

I’ve never been asked to leave anywhere but I do get self-conscious if I am somewhere around lunch time and try not to continue working if it is getting busy. For me as an infrequent visitor to Bangkok I tend to spend on a couple of hours in one place, so I probably don’t wear out my welcome compared to being someone who visits the same cafe every day for hours on end.

Cheers!