Internet Cafes

[Quintillus]

I recently came across an article about the world's last Internet cafes (https://restofworld.org/2023/internet-cafes/). The good news is, they're more common than Blockbusters. But the article really makes you stop and realize, this major part of internet culture has nearly disappeared.

Did you first surf the World Wide Web from an Internet cafe? Was that where you first browser CivFanatics? Do you still go to the local cyberspace cafe to see what the latest topics are?

I unfortunately am a bit too young, and missed out on internet cafes in my area. By the time I was old enough to be able to drive to them, the ones nearby all catered to online gambling, not exactly what my goal was. Although I looked it up tonight and there is a gaming-centric Internet cafe type business locally, near the major university. Just like in the old days, you pay to rent time on the computers there, but instead of chatting on Yahoo! Messenger, most of the clientele are playing Valorant or another modern 3D game. Still, it's probably the closest thing left.

 

[Kyriakos]

Here some still exist, but only so as to play online competitive games with very fast computers. But a decade ago there were far more around.

 

[Zardnaar]

Think there's 1 left in my city. More computer servicing place bought 3 computers there over the years. Used to have a large upstairs room Warcraft 3 etc reduced to a few pcs in a glorified hole in wall.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I didn't start going online outside the college library until 2004. At first it was at internet cafes. There was one in a hotel lobby downtown. City Hall had a computer on loan from the library (the library took it back; it was free at City Hall but the library ones require a $10 annual membership to use).

I usually used the one at London Drugs, as they had a sandwich counter there at the time so I could get lunch while I surfed and posted on The Gaming Forum That Shall Not Be Named (obviously this was well before all the crap happened that drove some of us to create no fewer than FOUR breakaway forums).

Eventually I got my own computer (Windows 98!) and internet setup. Thus I began a habit that persisted for years - gaming and posting online while watching TV. Playing mah-jongg while listening to a documentary about ABBA, and playing Speedy Eggbert while watching Boston Legal. Now it's do a couple of posts here, watch a video, play a level or two of a game, check FB, post on TrekBBS (the Dune thread is active again), read a few chapters of a fanfic story, post some comments, write a bit on my own stories... some of this is done one-handed while I use the other to cuddle Maddy. I have no appreciable attention span anymore.

I have no idea if there are any internet cafes left now. The last one I knew of was located in a somewhat dangerous part of town where I don't go if I can possibly help it.

 

[Snowygerry]

I recently came across an article about the world's last Internet cafes (https://restofworld.org/2023/internet-cafes/). The good news is, they're more common than Blockbusters. But the article really makes you stop and realize, this major part of internet culture has nearly disappeared.

Did you first surf the World Wide Web from an Internet cafe? Was that where you first browser CivFanatics? (...)

Well here internetcafes came after the first trailbreakers already had internet at home, when the internet started to be used widely professionally, not just by people with their own office,

my first worldwideweb gaming experience was playing online chess on the PC of a girlfriend's dad who was a chemist and used it for work, sometime deep in the nineties,

soon after good home connections became widespread, first among gamers mostly, but I'm old enough to remember the time when a "good ping" still meant something yes

 

[Zardnaar]

Main reason I used cafes was broadband instead if dial up.

Got broadband 2004 so yeah that killed that off

 

[tjs282]

While I was living out of a rucksack, first as a backpacker and later as a barefoot dive instructor (1998-2005), I used internet cafes once-twice a month, to stay in (tenuous) touch with friends and family -- and search for my next job.

But ever since I got a fixed abode and "a job that would keep me" (quoting my mother), I've used the internet from home (or the office!) instead. Actually had to google "internet cafe + [my town]" to discover that it still has two, just north of the market square and on the same street, about 500m apart. Never used either of them myself, and neither has yet been reviewed/rated on Yelp, so I've no idea who uses them (students? refugees?), or for what purpose.

And ever since I finally gave in (kicking and screaming all the way) last year, joined the 21st century and bought a smartphone, most of my surfing (and CFC usage!) has been done on that, rather than my PC. Has at least cut down on my tendency to post Walls'O'Text.

I'm still using the old Yahoo!Mail address for my personal email, though...

 

[Bamspeedy]

Googling 'internet cafe near me', doesn't get the results I was expecting. Basically, if it's a coffee shop and they have wifi, they advertise they are an internet cafe, so BYOD (bring your own device). By that standard, most restaurants nowadays are internet cafes.

 

[lymond]

I've never seen an internet cafe here in the US, but they have egaming places now. I used internet cafes several times when traveling to Europe - very convenient. Sorry to hear they are almost extinct. Most of the ones I recall using were very small little places no bigger than a convenience store with maybe only a vending machine present for refreshment.

edit: Yep, walk into any Starbucks, Panera or Peet's here and half the folks sitting around sippin' joe are working on their own laptops.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, Starbucks is just an updated internet cafe. I never used an internet cafe. I went from dial up to broadband at home beginning about 1990.

 

[Quintillus]

Indeed, coffee shops with WiFi are spiritual successors in a way, you just have to bring your own computer. And the local libraries still have sections with computers you can use. I wonder if that's also a factor in where the remaining traditional Internet cafes are - around here, even the rougher parts of towns are generally close to a library that offers free computers to use, free scanning, and inexpensive printing. So there isn't as much of a business model to offer the same thing that the local libraries offer.

I went from dial up to broadband at home beginning about 1990.

Nineteen ninety-zero? For broadband? That is way ahead of the curve!

 

[Kyriakos]

Nineteen ninety-zero? For broadband? That is way ahead of the curve!

Nice understatement. Broadband (not even ADSL) didn't exist back then, only dial-up (and that's not in 1990, but a couple of years later) ^^

 

[EgonSpengler]

I rarely used internet cafes, even when they were around. I used them sometimes when I was traveling on long trips, which for me was Europe. When I travel in the US, it's usually only for like a long weekend, so my memories of internet cafes are entirely European. If I'd ever needed an internet cafe in my hometown, I wouldn't have known where to find one. Anyway, before smart-phones, you didn't need to be connected to everything all the time. Checking email once or twice a week while on vacation was pretty normal, and everything else you needed was in print or in the heads of helpful people. On my first day in London, I was on the train from Heathrow into the city, and sitting on the seat next to me was this delightful local newspaper that not only had listings for all of the rock shows in the city that weekend, they even included 1-2 sentences describing what sort of music each band played, which I thought was a stroke of genius (my local paper had extensive listings, but if it was a band you didn't know, you had to infer something about the style of music by where they were playing and with who). I'd been in London for 5 minutes and there was my whole weekend, laid out before me, just sitting there on the seat next to me. That night I went to see an Irish punk band in the back of a pub a 15 minute walk from my hotel. Can't remember their name, but they were good. And when I wanted to go to a museum or find a restaurant, I just asked someone.

 

[amadeus]

Yes, Starbucks is just an updated internet cafe. I never used an internet cafe. I went from dial up to broadband at home beginning about 1990.

What kind of system did you have in 1990? I remember high-speed lines being pretty cost prohibitive for residential users.

 

[Kyriakos]

Here is a timeline of the early web, from Cern:

A short history of the Web

home.cern

Just to move on from the "1990 home" (let alone broadband) connection.

 

[amadeus]

I don’t know why you would be so skeptical because putting data into bits and then transmitting it over wire predates the electronic computer, let alone the web, which is just a standard for online communication and not the base technology of computers talking to each other over long distances.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think it'd be better to get the answer directly; further pontificating won't help
My impression is that it was just an error of decade (early 2000s instead of 1990).

 

[Birdjaguar]

Indeed, coffee shops with WiFi are spiritual successors in a way, you just have to bring your own computer. And the local libraries still have sections with computers you can use. I wonder if that's also a factor in where the remaining traditional Internet cafes are - around here, even the rougher parts of towns are generally close to a library that offers free computers to use, free scanning, and inexpensive printing. So there isn't as much of a business model to offer the same thing that the local libraries offer.


Nineteen ninety-zero? For broadband? That is way ahead of the curve!

What kind of system did you have in 1990? I remember high-speed lines being pretty cost prohibitive for residential users.

We moved to NM in late 1990 and in 1992 bought our house and quickly subscribed to AOL until 1995 when we switched to Pipeline.com (they later were bought by Mindspring). As soon as it was available we upgraded to DSL (likely in the late 90s). Then we moved to the improved "broadband" and then to Comcast cable. Albuquerque (and Santa Fe) are home to two National labs (Sandia and Los Alamos) and the area has adopted updated tech backbones, like faster internet connections, as soon as possible. Our kids were playing playing Diablo with friends over the internet as soon as it came it (1997).

As far as computers go, through the early 2000s anyway, I've stayed pretty current (within a year) of the newest Intel driven PCs made for general use.

 

[GenMarshall]

I know once smartphones and cellular internet (and free wi-fi in cafes, restaurants, and hotels/motels) came into the market that’s affordable for most people, Internet cafes just died off or refurbished into small coffee shops with free wi-fi.

Did you first surf the World Wide Web from an Internet cafe?

No, it was around middle school in the mid 90s when I first surf the Internet. I still remember in the school’s computer lab on a MacOS 7-8 with Netscape Navigator.

Was that where you first browser CivFanatics?

I recall it was IE before I moved to Firefox. I still remember having to use dial-up in the late 90s-early 2000s. I recall sometime in my junior or senior year of college (sometime in the early 2000s) we finally switched to cable Internet.

Do you still go to the local cyberspace cafe to see what the latest topics are?

They don’t exist in my area anymore. Why go to a cyberspace cafe when you have a smartphone that can access via cellular network or know establishments that have free wi-fi.

 

[Quintillus]

And when I wanted to go to a museum or find a restaurant, I just asked someone.

I think that's an under-rated way of discovering places. It's handy being able to search for "food" on Yelp and finding reviews, but there's so much information to sift through... it can be more efficient to just ask someone.

Not being connected all the time is definitely under-rated. Isn't the half the point of being on vacation to get away from the standard everyday part of life? I think there's something to be said for the whole, "we'll be gone for a week or two, see you when we're back", and there really being no way of reaching the people who were on vacation.

Mindspring

Now that's a name I haven't heard for a while. They were our ISP from whenever they bought the previous ISP until we switched from dial-up to broadband in 2006. I figured you might have had a jump start on telecommunications out there in New Mexico.