I must say I completely missed out on the whole "Internet cafe" thing. Technology fandoms & online activity in general used to have a more real life social aspect even back in 2007 era Internet just before the smartphone invasion. It's something no one really writes about: the social structures built on previous versions of the Internet are as fleeting as the technology. Honestly the way tech changed & especially enforcement of policies has already warped & changed our sphere immensely just in the last 4 years.
Yes. I could actually have included something in this piece about the online communities that I was part of at that time. The old bulletin board forums. You are right; these communities are very transient. I think this was less of a problem 20 years ago, and as you say even in 2007, because at that time real-world community was still a thing. Today, it has fallen away for many people, leaving them with only the online stuff - which, as you say, is basically disposable.
I went straight from never having really used the Internet, to having it at home (at precisely the turn of the millennium), so I never set foot in an Internet cafe. I wouldn't have liked them. Too public.
The main limiting factor was the speed at which you could connect. I'll never forget the screeching of the dialup modem and the pathetic download speed. Just downloading a single song could take ages. An entire album was something you had to set aside serious time for (and hope the connection didn't drop during).
An early important technological jump for me was when when apps were introduced that allowed you to pause and resume downloads.
I enjoyed the early Internet culture, before 'mums' found it.
And back then they weren't called "apps".... They were called "software" or "programs". "Apps" didn't really take off until iPhone marketing ("there's an app for that")
On the subject of early 2000s slow downloads, I remember when a friend introduced me to Kazaa, an early form of uTorrent (or late form of Napster) where you could download movies and entire TV series rather than just songs.
The catch was that series took weeks to download. I can vividly remember downloading the latest season (series?) of The Sopranos, checking on the progress a couple of times a day to make sure it was still connected and see how far it gone up. Usually about 2 or 3% - more than that would add a skip to my heart and put me in a good mood for the next few hours.
Quite a pleasant experience, rather like cultivating a plant, with the enjoyable payoff of being able to watch the series for free at the end of it.
I never had much experience with internet cafes as my parents bought an internet-capable computer with dial up fairly early on, back in 2001 or so. We lived in a small village and so town life, with all of it's conveniences including internet cafes, weren't experienced by me until I got my driving licence at 17 in 2007 and could make the 5 mile journey to my nearest small town (there were no trains or buses where I grew up).
I did, however, come to rely on internet cafes when travelling around New Zealand back in 2011 (though I was only there for around a month, getting terribly homesick for England). There was one in Auckland, just a 30 second walk from the hostel I stayed in for a week or so, that I ended up becoming quite attached to.
It has bittersweet memories for me, though. It was convenient, as it allowed me to get in contact with the people I missed back home through Facebook. But to be honest, I think it hindered me more than anything.
All the time I spent in the internet cafe should have been spent wandering around NZ, enjoying the sights and scenery, perhaps meeting other fellow young travellers. I did this a bit, but not as much as I should have.
But I was painfully shy and while I had some pie in the sky ideas about travel and adventure being what I needed, I soon came to the conclusion that I had bitten off far more than I could chew. Going to the other side of the world as a first backpacking experience was a stupid idea. I should have started off with somewhere in Europe...
As much as I liked that internet cafe, a place that was dark, quiet and safe, it was in hindsight a curse more than a blessing. My reliance on it rather than being forced to get out into NZ and acquire real world experiences basically caused me to ruin my trip for myself and I came home 11 months ahead of schedule.
Thankfully now I'm older, more aware of my own limitations and much more confident.
Apologies for the length, this post just brought a lot of things back.
It's interesting, the mistakes we make when we're young and don't know any better. You were at the other side of the world but still socialising with the people from home - you might as well have stayed in England!
But, I would suggest two reasons not to have much regret:
1) NZ is English-speaking. Going to somewhere in Europe, where they don't speak English, might have made you feel even more isolated and compelled you even more towards the Internet.
2) Travel doesn't really broaden the mind. In my opinion, people learn more from staying in their own country than from displacing themselves into some foreign land. There is little there that one can effectively "interface" with, so the results tend to be shallow.
This is absolutely true. As an Englishman in the US, whenever my fellow Americans tell me about their vacation trips to Europe, I always notice how shallow their experiences have been. The tourism industry envelops them in a substitute experience that isn't much different to that fake Disneyland thing they built with a fake Eiffel Tower etc. If they went to Paris and got mugged and beaten up by some Algerians, at least that would be an authentic experience with the locals.
Indeed, point (1) that you made was the main reason I chose NZ. I thought a good starting point for travelling would be somewhere that speaks English natively and has many similarities to my homeland. But still, you don't quite realise just how British you are until you go somewhere else.
"Hey yea g'day mate how you gittin' on ta'day?" *slaps you on the back*
"Very well, thank you..."
And point (2) is very true. Travelling is, in my view, overrated. It can be a lot of fun, of course, but a lot of what they tell you about travelling, especially to Brits and Americans, is designed as an op to make you feel that your homeland is devoid of culture and has nothing offer, whereas all these wonderful foreign lands hold the answers to all your questions (not true at all). All part of the globalist deracination ploy.
I spent much of my first two years at university (1994-1996) in the terminal room, playing Unitopia, a text-based multi-user dungeon (MUD) game. The game is still online! https://www.unitopia.de/
The terminals also sported Netscape Mosaic, but it was not clear at that point if it was of any use...
And, aah, the Archos mp3 players. The switch from the Archos Gmini 120 2.5" hard-disk brick to the lean 1.8" Gmini X202S was quite something.
We have superb technology around us everywhere, far better than anything we can produce today but we will produce it in the future and put it back in past pattern to match the primitive life forms we see in the fossil record, long extinct forms. Plants and life of all sorts is that technology. Let us make them in our image, let us make us and our reality self consistent.
As I always said to my kids when they asked what the future would look like I said it could look exactly like the past, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference except in future people wouldn't have to live as they did in the past they will choose to live as they did in the past. Of course some people may not choose to live that wayof using a far superior technology only sparingly but I think most people would as a hobby. Of course you could pull a music machine out of the enfolding and unenfolding aether to listen to but why bother when you can go down the pub and listen to a real band with real people you can speak to?
Those weird Christmas card scenes where every light in the cottage homes are blazing out despite the fact no-one would be in most of the rooms isn't just a way to make the card look bright it is the way it will actually be when we power our future as freely as the Sun is powered by this constantly enfolding and unfolding electro-magnetic-spin object that it and we are part of and which we call the multiverse.
A table is being prepared for us in the presence of our enemies, we are being annointed ....... and our cup shall runneth over.
Our paths nearly crossed in Edinburgh and London, curious.
I'm a late adopter/retard: I got my first mobile phone in 2004, first smartphone in 2015. 20 years ago, internet was exciting, tech seemed cool. I really wanted an Apple laptop round about 2006, even though I wouldn't have used more than a fraction of its capabilities.
Now I can barely type (fingers due to be amputated) and so would prefer to handwrite, it would actually be less frustrating than trying to type one-handed after decades of superfast touch typing. I prefer computer games from the 90s. I am Uncle Tedding. It's not just age & injury: I've come to regard new tech with dread, no matter how convenient it is, indeed the more convenient & alluring the more I feel like an implausibly hot young woman is flirting with me and I wonder what I'm about to lose.
A great article that matches my own thinking on this subject.
I made a similar move to London not that long after you and looking back think around 2005 was the peak era of technology. There was just enough to revolutionise certain areas of our lives in a positive way, but not so much that it took over everything and dominated our lives like today where not owning a smart phone instantly cuts you off from so many things.
I still have a fair few of those 128kbps MP3s floating around, I just wish I could still buy an iPod classic to play them on...
Speak8ng of dystopia, have you been following the Great Reset after which we will own nothing and be happy? It will turn the developed world into an open air prison where everything you do is filmed and a social credit scoring system will determine if you deserve a few extra crumbs of cake or a punishment.
I went on a trip to London to see Chris Isaak with a buddy who had got an early iphone, it might have been 2007, I resented the hell out of it, he spent practically the whole time looking at the damn thing. I didnt get a smart phone till years after that and if I felt like I could I'd get rid of the bloody thing.
As someone born in 1980 (so probably just a few years older than you?) I feel like you write in a way that very much mirrors my own way of thinking and feeling about "current era". This piece echoes a conversation I had just recently with my other half, as we both marvelled at the abilities technology currently affords us (he's a gamer and loves that he can play 'World of Warships' with online friends around the world) and worried about the ways in which our every move is now monitored, wherever we go, regardless of whether or not we carry a smartphone on our person. (He refuses to own one and I tend to leave mine at home, unless going somewhere that necessitates it being with me). I'm glad to have discovered this Substack, because just reading the few pieces I've enjoyed today, has done the one thing technology still has to potential to achieve: bring like minded people together and feel less alone in this strange foreign land they call the future. x
I must say I completely missed out on the whole "Internet cafe" thing. Technology fandoms & online activity in general used to have a more real life social aspect even back in 2007 era Internet just before the smartphone invasion. It's something no one really writes about: the social structures built on previous versions of the Internet are as fleeting as the technology. Honestly the way tech changed & especially enforcement of policies has already warped & changed our sphere immensely just in the last 4 years.
Yes. I could actually have included something in this piece about the online communities that I was part of at that time. The old bulletin board forums. You are right; these communities are very transient. I think this was less of a problem 20 years ago, and as you say even in 2007, because at that time real-world community was still a thing. Today, it has fallen away for many people, leaving them with only the online stuff - which, as you say, is basically disposable.
I might add a piece about online communities and their fragility in the face of change to my long queue of written content.
Very compelling piece. Absolutely agree about dreading the next tech advance, that's exactly how I feel too.
I went straight from never having really used the Internet, to having it at home (at precisely the turn of the millennium), so I never set foot in an Internet cafe. I wouldn't have liked them. Too public.
The main limiting factor was the speed at which you could connect. I'll never forget the screeching of the dialup modem and the pathetic download speed. Just downloading a single song could take ages. An entire album was something you had to set aside serious time for (and hope the connection didn't drop during).
An early important technological jump for me was when when apps were introduced that allowed you to pause and resume downloads.
I enjoyed the early Internet culture, before 'mums' found it.
SMS still exists. People still use that.
Ah yes, the "wild west" era of the Internet. I think we all have a soft spot in our hearts for that. :)
And back then they weren't called "apps".... They were called "software" or "programs". "Apps" didn't really take off until iPhone marketing ("there's an app for that")
I remember that. I couldn't understand what they were saying. 'There's a nap for that? A knack for that?'
You're right. And if the word was used, it was the full word. Application.
On the subject of early 2000s slow downloads, I remember when a friend introduced me to Kazaa, an early form of uTorrent (or late form of Napster) where you could download movies and entire TV series rather than just songs.
The catch was that series took weeks to download. I can vividly remember downloading the latest season (series?) of The Sopranos, checking on the progress a couple of times a day to make sure it was still connected and see how far it gone up. Usually about 2 or 3% - more than that would add a skip to my heart and put me in a good mood for the next few hours.
Quite a pleasant experience, rather like cultivating a plant, with the enjoyable payoff of being able to watch the series for free at the end of it.
Yes, I remember that little era - maybe 2002-2006. I used a program called Overnet. There was also Limewire and Shazam.
Frostwire still exists for those of us who were never all that fond of legitimate "streaming services", lol.
I never had much experience with internet cafes as my parents bought an internet-capable computer with dial up fairly early on, back in 2001 or so. We lived in a small village and so town life, with all of it's conveniences including internet cafes, weren't experienced by me until I got my driving licence at 17 in 2007 and could make the 5 mile journey to my nearest small town (there were no trains or buses where I grew up).
I did, however, come to rely on internet cafes when travelling around New Zealand back in 2011 (though I was only there for around a month, getting terribly homesick for England). There was one in Auckland, just a 30 second walk from the hostel I stayed in for a week or so, that I ended up becoming quite attached to.
It has bittersweet memories for me, though. It was convenient, as it allowed me to get in contact with the people I missed back home through Facebook. But to be honest, I think it hindered me more than anything.
All the time I spent in the internet cafe should have been spent wandering around NZ, enjoying the sights and scenery, perhaps meeting other fellow young travellers. I did this a bit, but not as much as I should have.
But I was painfully shy and while I had some pie in the sky ideas about travel and adventure being what I needed, I soon came to the conclusion that I had bitten off far more than I could chew. Going to the other side of the world as a first backpacking experience was a stupid idea. I should have started off with somewhere in Europe...
As much as I liked that internet cafe, a place that was dark, quiet and safe, it was in hindsight a curse more than a blessing. My reliance on it rather than being forced to get out into NZ and acquire real world experiences basically caused me to ruin my trip for myself and I came home 11 months ahead of schedule.
Thankfully now I'm older, more aware of my own limitations and much more confident.
Apologies for the length, this post just brought a lot of things back.
It's interesting, the mistakes we make when we're young and don't know any better. You were at the other side of the world but still socialising with the people from home - you might as well have stayed in England!
But, I would suggest two reasons not to have much regret:
1) NZ is English-speaking. Going to somewhere in Europe, where they don't speak English, might have made you feel even more isolated and compelled you even more towards the Internet.
2) Travel doesn't really broaden the mind. In my opinion, people learn more from staying in their own country than from displacing themselves into some foreign land. There is little there that one can effectively "interface" with, so the results tend to be shallow.
This is absolutely true. As an Englishman in the US, whenever my fellow Americans tell me about their vacation trips to Europe, I always notice how shallow their experiences have been. The tourism industry envelops them in a substitute experience that isn't much different to that fake Disneyland thing they built with a fake Eiffel Tower etc. If they went to Paris and got mugged and beaten up by some Algerians, at least that would be an authentic experience with the locals.
Indeed, point (1) that you made was the main reason I chose NZ. I thought a good starting point for travelling would be somewhere that speaks English natively and has many similarities to my homeland. But still, you don't quite realise just how British you are until you go somewhere else.
"Hey yea g'day mate how you gittin' on ta'day?" *slaps you on the back*
"Very well, thank you..."
And point (2) is very true. Travelling is, in my view, overrated. It can be a lot of fun, of course, but a lot of what they tell you about travelling, especially to Brits and Americans, is designed as an op to make you feel that your homeland is devoid of culture and has nothing offer, whereas all these wonderful foreign lands hold the answers to all your questions (not true at all). All part of the globalist deracination ploy.
I spent much of my first two years at university (1994-1996) in the terminal room, playing Unitopia, a text-based multi-user dungeon (MUD) game. The game is still online! https://www.unitopia.de/
The terminals also sported Netscape Mosaic, but it was not clear at that point if it was of any use...
And, aah, the Archos mp3 players. The switch from the Archos Gmini 120 2.5" hard-disk brick to the lean 1.8" Gmini X202S was quite something.
Netscape Mosaic? Or Explorer?
Mosaic, definitively. On a black-and-white screen.
We have superb technology around us everywhere, far better than anything we can produce today but we will produce it in the future and put it back in past pattern to match the primitive life forms we see in the fossil record, long extinct forms. Plants and life of all sorts is that technology. Let us make them in our image, let us make us and our reality self consistent.
As I always said to my kids when they asked what the future would look like I said it could look exactly like the past, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference except in future people wouldn't have to live as they did in the past they will choose to live as they did in the past. Of course some people may not choose to live that wayof using a far superior technology only sparingly but I think most people would as a hobby. Of course you could pull a music machine out of the enfolding and unenfolding aether to listen to but why bother when you can go down the pub and listen to a real band with real people you can speak to?
Those weird Christmas card scenes where every light in the cottage homes are blazing out despite the fact no-one would be in most of the rooms isn't just a way to make the card look bright it is the way it will actually be when we power our future as freely as the Sun is powered by this constantly enfolding and unfolding electro-magnetic-spin object that it and we are part of and which we call the multiverse.
A table is being prepared for us in the presence of our enemies, we are being annointed ....... and our cup shall runneth over.
Our paths nearly crossed in Edinburgh and London, curious.
I'm a late adopter/retard: I got my first mobile phone in 2004, first smartphone in 2015. 20 years ago, internet was exciting, tech seemed cool. I really wanted an Apple laptop round about 2006, even though I wouldn't have used more than a fraction of its capabilities.
Now I can barely type (fingers due to be amputated) and so would prefer to handwrite, it would actually be less frustrating than trying to type one-handed after decades of superfast touch typing. I prefer computer games from the 90s. I am Uncle Tedding. It's not just age & injury: I've come to regard new tech with dread, no matter how convenient it is, indeed the more convenient & alluring the more I feel like an implausibly hot young woman is flirting with me and I wonder what I'm about to lose.
A great article that matches my own thinking on this subject.
I made a similar move to London not that long after you and looking back think around 2005 was the peak era of technology. There was just enough to revolutionise certain areas of our lives in a positive way, but not so much that it took over everything and dominated our lives like today where not owning a smart phone instantly cuts you off from so many things.
I still have a fair few of those 128kbps MP3s floating around, I just wish I could still buy an iPod classic to play them on...
Great read, thank you.
Also, upgraded to paid subscriber, definitely worth supporting sir
Thank you.
Speak8ng of dystopia, have you been following the Great Reset after which we will own nothing and be happy? It will turn the developed world into an open air prison where everything you do is filmed and a social credit scoring system will determine if you deserve a few extra crumbs of cake or a punishment.
I went on a trip to London to see Chris Isaak with a buddy who had got an early iphone, it might have been 2007, I resented the hell out of it, he spent practically the whole time looking at the damn thing. I didnt get a smart phone till years after that and if I felt like I could I'd get rid of the bloody thing.
As someone born in 1980 (so probably just a few years older than you?) I feel like you write in a way that very much mirrors my own way of thinking and feeling about "current era". This piece echoes a conversation I had just recently with my other half, as we both marvelled at the abilities technology currently affords us (he's a gamer and loves that he can play 'World of Warships' with online friends around the world) and worried about the ways in which our every move is now monitored, wherever we go, regardless of whether or not we carry a smartphone on our person. (He refuses to own one and I tend to leave mine at home, unless going somewhere that necessitates it being with me). I'm glad to have discovered this Substack, because just reading the few pieces I've enjoyed today, has done the one thing technology still has to potential to achieve: bring like minded people together and feel less alone in this strange foreign land they call the future. x