While I love working at home, I also love the freedom to work from anywhere. I’m writing this sitting at a local coffee shop just down the road from my house. It’s literally a block of walking to get here.

In many ways it’s been my favourite place to work for years. Not because it’s got decent WiFi because it doesn’t. Not because it’s got lots of power outlets either. The main floor has one outlet mounted on the ceiling and it’s loose so nothing stays in it.

It started out as my favourite because it was locally run. It’s got a great decoration theme in it. It’s just nice to work in the rooms, despite the drawbacks.

In the last year it’s been even better because they didn’t do anything to track you. Show them your old paper card for a coffee purchase and they’d punch the card. It wasn’t fancy but it worked.

Unfortunately as of now they’re moving over to a new system and I’ve got to trade my email for the coffee card. Worse, to get a receipt for taxes I’ve got to trade my email with them. No printing receipts anymore, only email or text.

Now it’s got slow WiFi, few outlets, and it wants to track me.

It keeps getting harder and harder to not be tracked these days.