This is something that has always interested me, and it’s refreshing to see someone articulate it so well. Basically, it’s easy for us to want something despite a complete lack regard for the work required to get it.
The fallacy points out that your penchant for coffee shops is completely disconnected from the responsibilities of owning a coffee shop. The environment created in the coffee shop is the public result of the owner’s hard work. That experience is explicitly devoid of the mundane behind-the-scenes responsibilities like cleaning, payroll, and maintenance. That’s all hidden from the customers because they just want a nice place to sit and drink coffee — not bothered with ordering supplies or paying rent.
It’s like Hollywood. Customers at the coffee shop are like the audience in the movie theatre. The audience doesn’t care about quibbles with casting departments, production budgets or deadlines. They just want to watch the movie, and it’s the producer’s job to ensure that gets done. Hide the shitty stuff and make it look easy.
The problem is that people don’t understand that there is a shitty part. That, by definition, is the coffee shop fallacy: a mismatch between the work one imagines to be involved in a pursuit and the actual day-to-day labour.
The shitty part isn’t unbearable or exclusive; it just requires more attention, focus and dedication than most people are willing to give. Productive people, however, are willing to put up with the shitty-ness because they know it will yield an awesome final result. They understand what needs to go on in the background to “make it look easy” and ship the final product or experience.
The guy who sits in the coffee shop, looks around and wants his own someday is just dreaming big.
