cybercafes and internet kiosks

This note considers cybercafes and internet kiosks.

It covers -

• introduction
• history
• statistics
• culture and community
• the business of cyber
• the Australian industry
• regulation
• the digital divides
• studies

The following page deals with telecentres (aka telecottages or teleservice centres).

     introduction

A cybercafe (aka an internet cafe or PC cafe) is a commercial venue where members of the public can access the net for a fee, usually per hour or minute. Some cafes offer unmetered wireless access. The venue will generally offer beverages and food; declining connectivity prices mean that most cybercafes now based their revenue on retailing comestibles rather than bytes.

Telecottages are more likely to be in rural locations, often run on a voluntary basis (sometimes with government support), may offer subsidised ICT training and are often associated with other community facilities.

Internet kiosks - the public phone boxes of the 2000s - are coin or card-operated devices that offer metered access to the net.

Cybercafes and kiosks are located world-wide, although they tend to cluster in major population centres and locations such as airports.

One reporter comments that

there are thousands of internet cafés of all shapes and sizes, all over the world from city centres to small villages to the depths of the jungle and even on remote mountains sides. From simple beginnings the internet café concept has brought access and communication to local people and travellers alike and now it's hard to imagine life without them.

Uses of cybercafes vary. John Stewart's 2000 Cafematics: the Cybercafe and the Community (PDF) notes that cybercafes are social meeting points, with many customers considering the atmosphere and opportunity to be with friends an important reason for use. That is consistent with the history of cafes, bars and other meeting places.

Use by travellers is significant, with many people visiting them when away from home or the office to access mail, catch up with news or make travel arrangements. Some of them are also used for multiplayer games (with machines on the cafe's LAN or linked via the net to players at another site).

     history

The precursors of the cybercafe appeared in the early 1990s, typically as venues that featured personal computers - sometimes coin-operated - allowing access to bulletin boards. (Assertions that the "first cybercafe" was opened in 1984 have not been substantiated.)

Cafe Cyberia, often claimed as the world's first cybercafe, opened in London's West End in September 1994. Despite expectations that it would advance online feminism, it gained attention as a fashionable venue and supposedly as "one of the only places in central London where you could get a decent cup of coffee". That is perhaps ironic, given the nastiness of the coffee available from later cybercafes.

The simplicity of the model - connectivity, coffee, cake and a cash register - saw adoption across the world, with what is claimed as Australia's first cybercafe - Cybernet - opening in Melbourne and Suba launched as the first North American cybercafe during early 1995. By mid-1995 there appear to have been around 60 cybercafes operating in Australia, North America and Europe. Around 350 telecottages or 'teleservice centres' were in operation globally at that time.

Growth reflected -

• the internet boom, in particular perceptions that being 'online' was an easy way for entrepreneurs and investors to make money
• increased availability and lower cost of connectivity and personal computers
• increasing media coverage and personal exposure

By 1997 there appear to be several thousand cybercafes across the globe, most in North America (some estimates suggest 25% of the global total) and Western Europe. Some were large-scale, with for example Stelios Haji-Ioannou of the Easy cybercafe chain operating a 500 PC venue in New York's Times Square. Uptake in the 'South' - eg in Latin America - has been slower.

The number of cafes in the West may have declined since a peak in the late 1990s, as more people went online at home, cybercafes (particularly those with fixed rather than wireless connections) ceased to be hip and operators realised that many consumers were more interested in the cafe than the cyber.

     statistics

Statistics about the diffusion and current number of cybercafes are problematical because of uncertainties in definition and the absence of authoritative measurement mechanisms.

Government statistical agencies and commercial metrics groups, for example, have not been collecting and publishing national statistics about the number of cafes and their equipment. Some online and print guides list venues that no longer exist - or that merely no longer offer connectivity - and thus do not offer accurate counts.

Figures about the number of customers and their use of cafes and telecentres are even more uncertain, although there appears to be significant regional variation (eg in advanced economies more time is spent on game-playing and by tourists checking email than at venues in emerging economies).

John Stewart's small scale study of UK cybercafes commented that

They all have a regular customer base, with over 50% of customers coming in at least once a month and many more regularly. Users are very mixed, male and female, young and old, although there is a marked bias toward younger people using the cafes.

In practice the major counts of cybercafes have been provided by online and print cybercafe and tourism guides. They suggest that by late 1999 the global number of cybercafes had grown to around 4,400, with estimates that between 20,000 and 200,000 cafes were operating in 2004. The latter figure reflects claims of up to 50,000 cafes in India and 110,000 in China (most, apparently, a single PC with a slow dial-up connection).

     culture and community

For some observers the importance of cybercafes and telecottages has been community, both in bringing people together and in introducing them to ICT. Stewart for example comments that

If the city is our home, then the cybercafe is becoming an important part of our domestic life. Cybercafes bring IT into real communities, allowing people to use and learn about them in there own way.

and more broadly that cybercafes

service and reflect the communication and information needs of people living in a global society ... they place this in a local context, providing a social space and a convenient and hospitable location for technology access: the 'human face' of the information society. The cybercafe can act as a gateway or portal between a local community, represented by individuals and formal and informal groups, and on-line communities and individuals.

More problematically he comments that cybercafes take

computers and Internet outside the mainstream paradigm of individual use and ownership. The dominant industry paradigm is for individual ownership and or use of computers, communicating in a 'virtual space' or community over a network. Use of the cybercafe undermines this, as it is based on people buying time to use the computer, not owning technology, and sharing them in a public space, not in a private space. They also favour the 'networkcentric' model of information technology development: a virtual presence on the network, though a Web page or e-mail account, is more important than a physical presence, e.g. owning a computer.

In the West that notion has been challenged by the enthusiasm with which consumers have adopted personal computers at home, wireless computers (particularly among business and undergraduate users) and - more broadly - mobile phones. The latter point is explored in Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2002) edited by James Katz & Mark Aakhus and the Messaging profile elsewhere on this site.

Brendan Koerner took a less rosy view in 2002, claiming that

The proliferation of cybercafes in Nigeria can be linked directly to the demand supplied by 419ers [email fraudsters], who form the establishments' core clientele. Walk into an Internet cafe in Lagos, and chances are that a good percentage of the terminals are occupied by men masquerading as Laurent Kabila's long-lost son or as a rogue official at the Central Bank of Nigeria. The wiring of Nigeria is being propelled by 419—much as America's appetite for porn helped shepherd the commercial Internet through its infancy.

     the business of cyber

The cybercafe industry in the West has changed over the past decade, reflecting the factors noted above. Three models are apparent.

Some venues emphasise basic connectivity, in particular for checking email. They are often oriented to backpackers or other tourists, typically consisting of up to twenty PCs. They often don't provide food; beverages may be on a self-service basis (eg from a dispenser). The customer base is transient.

A second model offers more extensive service, which may include CD burning, scanning and printing. The type of food and beverages on offer reflects the venue's location and demographics, ranging from snacks to full meals. Particular venues are used as 'offices away from home' rather than merely points to collect/despatch mail.

A third model emphasises game-playing, with connectivity centred on multi-player games between users (typically male and under 25) located in that venue and other venues. Such cybercafes implicitly discourage casual email and business use. Their facilities are more likely to feature machines with headphones or speakers.

The major development since 2000 has been diffusion of wireless hot-spots, allowing consumers to access the net without using someone else's machine. That is attractive to cybercafe operators because it frees them from investments in hardware and maintenance. T-Mobile, Pacific Century Cyber Works and Telstra for example provide wireless access in many Starbucks and Pacific Coffee venues in Hong Kong, the US and Australia.

The International Association of Cybercafes (IAC) claims - for us unpersuasively - that

cybercafes provide the best way to learn about the Internet because the staff of the cybercafe is available to teach and guide the public. The cybercafe also is a great way to get Internet access for home or business use because there is a physical place to go for the answers, not just a dreaded phone call for tech support. Many companies have recognized the cybercafe as the perfect means to sell their products. Customers to cybercafes get a chance to use computer software and hardware before they make a purchasing decision. By using these products before they buy, consumers have the ability to make an educated decision in the purchasing process. In many cases these products are available for purchase at the cybercafe either at the store itself or via an on-line storefront. Cybercafes offer services that are not available anywhere else because they feature advanced technologies that are either too expensive to afford or are not available in residential areas.

     the Australian industry

The shape of the Australian industry is uncertain. In contrast to parts of Europe there have been no major chains of cybercafes. (Stelios Haji-Ioannou's chain in the UK for example encompassed over 70 outlets at its height.) Most venues appear to have been established in isolation - it is rare to find more than three venues under common ownership - and few offer more than 20 devices for accessing the net.

Low entry costs, inconsistent demand away from particular locations - notably tourist strips - and entertainment economics mean that the industry has been volatile. The life of many venues is short; the 'survivors' have emphasised food or game-playing ... or simply accepted low revenues.

A note about wireless access in Australia and New Zealand is here.

     regulation

Cybercafes are located at the intersection of regulation of online content, places of entertainment and hospitality. Regulatory regimes thus vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with models that range from licensing of coffee shops (centred on public health) to supervision of amusement arcades (protecting the susceptible from "hotbeds of juvenile delinquency"), restrictions on privacy or maintenance of public order (eg quarantining the wider community from exposure to subversive or inflamatory content).

Regulation by particular national, regional and local jurisdictions thus encompasses -

• restrictions on access to some content through mandatory use of filters
• making cybercafe operators responsible for newsgroup postings or other online activity
• surveillance of online activity (eg in China) or video surveillance of customers (eg Vo v. City of Garden Grove in US, PDF)
• proposals (eg in Malaysia) for licensing of cybercafe customers
• local 'entertainment' taxes for cybercafes
• requirements that operators limit unauthorised downloading, copying and distribution of intellectual property
• zoning of cybercafes by preventing their operation in some locations
• restrictions on entry by 'under-age' customers (eg a 2004 Los Angeles ordinance and proposed legislation in Spain, Greece and India)
• recurrent visits by law enforment agency representatives in search of gangs or truants.

     the digital divides

In discussing various digital divides (overview here, details here) we have noted that in many emerging economies much of the population is offline because people cannot afford personal computers and phone lines or because communications infrastructure to the home/workplace simply is not available.

One response has been to bridge such divides by providing access through community centres (telecottages) operated on a not-for-profit basis or through commercial cybercafes. Advocates have accordingly suggested that cybercafes will reach their maximum extent in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia. Some divide initiatives have centred on plans to deliver state-of-the-art facilities to remote regions, with MIT for example gaining attention for plans to airlift telemedicine and e-learning gear in shipping containers to the Amazon.

A 2002 study by Boase, Chen, Wellman & Prijatelj notes that in the West public venues

disproportionately provides a place for disadvantaged groups to access the Internet. Although the different percentages are not large, to some extent public terminals give disadvantaged groups, such as women, the unemployed, newbies, and those from developing countries, a place to be. Not surprisingly, the variable most strongly associated with the use of public terminals is employment status: The unemployed are most likely to use public terminals. This suggests that public terminal users are not disproportionately high-income road warriors or young gamers.

     studies

There has been surprisingly little in-depth study of cybercafes and similar venues for access to cyberspace. Research has essentially centred on three themes -

• the sociology of cybercafes in advanced economies, in particular as "technosocial spaces" or manifestations of the 'city of bits'
• internet kiosks, 'tele-cottages' and community access points as mechanisms for rural revitalisation (eg through teleworking) in advanced economies
• use of cybercafes and similar venues for bridging various digital divides in emerging economies

For an entry to literature about the wired city see William Mitchell's contentious City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge: MIT Press 1995) and David Wilmoth's more persuasive 2003 Information Infrastructure & the Connected City (PDF). Other pointers to architecture and urbanism are here.

Academic fashions in the deconstruction of social relationships and cultures are evident in Shaping e-access in the cybercafé: networks,boundaries and heterotopian innovation by Sonia Liff & Fred Steward

the properties of Foucault's heterotopia are expressed in cybercafes, but to differing degrees explained by contrasting types of boundary spanning practice

and David Prater & Sarah Miller's 2002 article We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other: The Internet & the 21st Century Street.

Anne Laegran & James Stewart's 2003 Nerdy, trendy or healthy? Configuring the internet café article suggests that

internet cafes are not just adapting a universal concept in the process of configuration, but that some shared images are played with in different ways. The nerdy, trendy and healthy are translocal images that are played with in the configuration process, creating locally specific and embedded spaces. ... the internet cafe is neither a footloose space or entirely locally embedded, but that spaces are configured in the intersection of translocal images and local circumstances.

For us more incisive analysis is provided by John Stewart's 2000 Cafematics (PDF), Alison Powell's E-Life and Real Life: On- and off-line social life in an Internet Cafe (PDF) and Nina Wakeford's 'Gender and the landscapes of computing in an Internet cafe' in Virtual geographies: bodies, space and relations (London: Routledge 1999). Fans of Laegran may wish to refer to her 'Just another boys' room? Internet cafes as gendered technosocial spaces' in He she and IT. New perspectives on gender in the information society (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk 2003) edited by Merete Lie and 'The patrol station and the Internet cafe: rural technospaces for youth' in Journal of Rural Studies 18: 2 (2002).

Internet utopianism - with genuflections to Habermas and "an environment that revitalizes the kind of public sphere that occurred in eighteenth century European coffeehouses" - is reflected in works such as Brian Connery's 'IMHO: Authority & Egalitarian Rhetoric in the Virtual Coffeehouse' in Internet Culture (New York: Routledge 1997) edited by David Porter, Mark Nunes' more nuanced 1999 paper Cybercafes & Social Space: The Realities and Virtualities of Cybercafes and the 2002 Is there a Place in Cyberspace: The Uses and Users of Public Internet Terminals (PDF) by Jeffrey Boase, Wenhong Chen, Barry Wellman & Monica Prijatelj.

Public policy questions are highlighted in Technology & Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide (Cambridge: MIT Press 2003) by Mark Warschauer, Stephen Woolgar's 1998 survey Cyber Cafes & Telecottages: Increasing Public Access to Computers and the Internet, the more searching Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information & Communications Technologies (Hershey: Idea Group 2000) by Michael Gurstein. Questions of online content regulation, free speech and censorship are discussed in the Censorship guide elsewhere on this site. Works of particular interest include Lokman Tsui's Panoptic Control: Regulation of the Internet in China by Surveillance (PDF).

Antecedents are explored in Wolfgang Schivelbusch's Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants (New York: Vintage 1993), Mark Pendergast's Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World (New York: Basic Books 1999), The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry from Crop to the Last Drop (New York: New Press 1999) by Gregory Dicum & Nina Luttinger and Markman Ellis's An introduction to the coffee-house: a discursive model (PDF).

Howard Schultz & and Dori Yang's self-congratulatory Pour Your Heart Into It - How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time (New York: Hyperion 1997) and a Tuck case study (PDF) cover the caffeine version of Maccas. The 'new urbanism' is evident in Ray Oldenburg's The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community (New York: Marlowe 1999) and Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community & Everyday Life (New York: Basic 2003).

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