The rise of the Internet café.

As with any significant new change in society the advent of the Internet café had aided in the enhancement of societal relationships and increased the ability for most to find a way to connect to others.

Starting in 1988 in the tech wonderland of South Korea at Hongik University and with the name of ‘Electronic Café International,' (so apt!) it was humble in its offerings, with only two computers, but outspoken with its dream of social connectivity.

Blowing up throughout the early 90’s in San Francisco, New York, London and Finland the Internet café was doing a fantastic job of promoting the image of the internet as cool.  As gamers and workers continued to increase the time spent in these cafes; as it was cheaper than owning an at-home personal computer at the time, along came the stimulant we love, caffeine.

The merging of the internet into the coffee scene has had a very natural feel of real class progression.  The modern café had slipped away from its early days as the English coffeehouse or even the Turkish coffee bar in the local bazaar where poor local merchants and rich business folk would gather to talk news and politics, as well as consuming coffee from all over the world.  Today we still travel the globe to source our coffee and news but through local avenues though gone is the feeling of equanimity between all stratum of society.

With the internet café, they had somewhat superseded some of the divisiveness within nations in that whoever wants to ‘surf’ can buy a coffee and surf.

Should you join in and offer complimentary Wi-Fi with any purchase?  Why not?  If you can include the cost of unlimited Wi-Fi at your café, then password protect it and share it with your patrons.  It’s a great look to have students, mothers, and business folk all within the same space, comfortable, sipping on filter coffee, lattes, and espressos.  It’s not the heated debates on society and economics that once took place in the coffeehouse of old, but it is a symbiotic relationship that does have the effect of drawing many others from varying fields into one safe space.  

Now if only you could just get them to look up from their devices and chat with each other, good luck!