I live in europe (germany to be exact) and the problem is that coffee shops outside of the city often dont have Wifi, or if they do it isnt free. In the city its usually different, but they are cramped full most of the time and close at 6pm.
Also driving around to find a good spot creates too much overhead for me, i will continue to go to coffee shops for drinking a coffee i guess but YMMV of course.
I just tether all the time to get around this. Unless it's a place I regularly go to (home, office, friend's place), I don't even bother messing with wifi. I can have internet on my laptop up and running in seconds by tethering. Other people are awed when they see that I instantly have internet, without having to wrestle with annoying login pages and wifi passwords.
