What were 90s or 00s Internet Cafes like?

[Spiderman]

I read that there used to be a thing called Internet cafes. I mean well there still are but people keep talking about the ones from the 90s and I never experienced that.

Did anyone ever go to one in the 90s or 2000s?

 

[botboy]

some were small and others I heard were larger and very hot inside. Very smelly too.

 

[SilverClouds]

I got born in 1990 but when I was a teen they already weren't a thing and I didn't go to any as a child so yeah . Actually had my first PC at 7 years old I think (?) so that was 1997, I was sitting at home in front of my computer all day lol.

 

[Dopious]

They were mostly a place to hangout, sad place really. I almost started one once, but government discounted PC`s became a thing here and they all went bust in my country.

 

[GoldenGlovez]

Back home I never bothered with Internet cafes, but when I moved out to China in the 00's I spent time in a few. My girlfriend at the time and her friend were both big World of Warcraft nerds and I'd hang with them while they played, usually just hanging out drinking beer and having a laugh (technically I couldn't use the machines there, because Chinese government required a local ID at the cafes which I didn't have as a foreigner).

Growing up in the 90s, we'd have LAN parties every once in awhile instead. Half the time was just getting shit-faced drunk while troubleshooting LAN and PC issues, moving around gigantic CRT monitors, burning pirated copies to CD-R to pass around, then brief spouts of Quake death matches, Command & Conquer, StarCraft were often played. These would go on for 3-4 days in a row... sleeping wherever you could find a spot.

This pretty much captures what those were like:

 

[t2van]

Back home I never bothered with Internet cafes, but when I moved out to China in the 00's I spent time in a few. My girlfriend at the time and her friend were both big World of Warcraft nerds and I'd hang with them while they played, usually just hanging out drinking beer and having a laugh (technically I couldn't use the machines there, because Chinese government required a local ID at the cafes which I didn't have as a foreigner).

Growing up in the 90s, we'd have LAN parties every once in awhile instead. Half the time was just getting shit-faced drunk while troubleshooting LAN and PC issues, moving around gigantic CRT monitors, burning pirated copies to CD-R to pass around, then brief spouts of Quake death matches, Command & Conquer, StarCraft were often played. These would go on for 3-4 days in a row... sleeping wherever you could find a spot.

This pretty much captures what those were like:
View attachment 4972

Yeah I been to many of LAN parties always hated carrying my monitor around the place, having a nice big 19inch CRT was all good until you had to lug the fucker 6 doors down the street and up a hill. C&C, C&C red alert, doom, quake

Our local place started out as a gaming shop with 2 computers at the back you could access the internet for I think 30min at a time back in the day it quickly turned into I think 6 or 8 computers that you could play on a weekend with big local gaming events.

The "cafe" area was OK the old blue swivel chair, older spec machines in some places as gaming become popular you had better hardware I always remember before taking part turning the mouse upside down, remove the ball and clean out the gunk that built up over the week so you had no tracking lag - jeez thats old thinking now lol

The hunt for voodoo graphics

The local one was always clean and tidy as it was a shop first as you saw more dedicated cafes pop up with more machines and they often done the old pc repair in the back lots where crammed, broken floor tiles etc there was always just like today some nicer places and other places that popped up to take advantage of the money to be made.

Oh and no matter where you went once you went once - that one was ALWAYS your machine. There was always one to avoid because the keyboard wouldn't work, or was known to prone to crash, some real quirky trends used to appear in us humans at those places.

I used to think that was the way it was all going gaming wise but all of that quickly faded out as the internet got bigger and better and so did the connection, the more recent LAN party I had was in college and we killed the network playing delta force in the science lab - I got caught because I called myself CPT-lastname.

That was a lesson in staying anonymous after that point lol

I actually think that was one of the first games I started to then actually play online that has to be 98-99 something like that.

I even remember every other Friday when the Xbox 360 came out taking that to friends houses and setting up local 2v2 matches on split screens lol

 

[GoldenGlovez]

The hunt for voodoo graphics

I remember when the Voodoo2 came out. We had a LAN party gathering around that time and a friend had got his hands on one. Everybody's mind was blown with the graphics demos it bundled with, I was thinking 'ain't no way graphics are getting better than this'

 

[t2van]

I remember when the Voodoo2 came out. We had a LAN party gathering around that time and a friend had got his hands on one. Everybody's mind was blown with the graphics demos it bundled with, I was thinking 'ain't no way graphics are getting better than this'

Yeah I remember those days ... graphic card boxes used to look mysterious and cool with the eyes on them. I actually think then graphic improvements where a thing, now its hardly noticeable or we hit some kind of ceiling in terms of performance.

You seen how much voodoo 2 & 3 cards go for these days? Crazy money

 

[Champagne]

I’ve never been to one, but judging by the pictures from back in the day, they seem to have been very cool and full of people who just wanted to play together.

 

[t2van]

I’ve never been to one, but judging by the pictures from back in the day, they seem to have been very cool and full of people who just wanted to play together.

Not just that but some places had the full Encarta Encyclopaedia collections which made doing some research easier than trying to use the library if you was pro pc - always found it funny that the local libraries used to run small pc cafes but you could never have access to that kind of software you had to use the reference desk

 

[Spiderman]

They were mostly a place to hangout, sad place really. I almost started one once, but government discounted PC`s became a thing here and they all went bust in my country.

You said it was sad but almost started one. Why is that?

 

[Dopious]

You said it was sad but almost started one. Why is that?

People liked them, so there was money to be made, but as I said government discounted PC`s became a thing and people bought subsidized Home PC`s for home instead so the market died out.

The "discount" referring to is the Home PC Reform (Hem-PC-reformen), a landmark Swedish government initiative introduced in January 1998. It is widely credited with kickstarting Sweden’s tech boom and high level of digital literacy.

The Incentive: The reform allowed employees to lease a computer through their employer via gross salary deduction (bruttolöneavdrag). Because the cost was deducted before income tax, employees effectively saved 30–50% compared to retail prices, depending on their tax bracket.

• Rapid Adoption: Within the first few years, over one million Swedes (out of a population of 9 million) acquired a computer through the scheme. For many families, this was their first encounter with modern computing and the internet.
• The Impact: It transformed Sweden into one of the most computer-literate nations in the world, providing the infrastructure and skills that eventually birthed tech giants like Spotify, Skype, and Mojang.
• The End of the Era: The tax benefit was heavily criticized for being a "subsidy for the middle class" and was gradually phased out, officially ending in 2007.

Source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hem-PC-reformen

 

[RiskyStuff]

People liked them, so there was money to be made, but as I said government discounted PC`s became a thing and people bought subsidized Home PC`s for home instead so the market died out.

Oh this keep it simple stupid (KISS ) philosophy. I love this man!
1. See what people like.
2. Start.
3. Watch it go.
1.9. Quit before starting instead of wasting time, energy, resources.
4. Wait some time and start something more profitable.