aamir khurso sits in the lobby of his internet cafe, looking out at the rain. on the wall behind him is a black-and-white printout asking customers to present their ID cards. not too many customers, just a few youngsters staring at bulky old crt monitors inside little white cubicles. a musty smell permeates the place.
“Few people come here. I wonder if it’s time to close this place down,” says the 37-year-old owner of a firefox internet cafe in east delhi. “a decade ago, there used to be a waiting period to use the internet.”
Reading: Cyber cafe india
internet cafes symbolized india’s nascent internet revolution and introduced a generation to the world wide web. The first, simply called the Internet Cafe, opened in Mumbai’s Leela Hotel in 1996, a year after VSNL brought the Internet to India. soon after, delhi got its first cyber club, at the itc maurya hotel. both no longer exist.
in 2005, india had 200,000 net coffees. That number has now dropped to 72,000, according to the Internet Cafe Association of India.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the advent of internet cafes in India, and their number is dwindling rapidly: the capital has 2,500 of 8,000 in 2008.
Going back to the summer of 2000 when it started, khurso says, “i was 22 years old and i wanted to do something different. then it was fashionable to open internet cafes. they were the start-ups of those days. we were the first to spread digital literacy, but now we are out of work.”
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with increasing access to the internet at home and work, internet cafe owners like khurso now offer public online services (air and train ticketing, money transfer, online applications, scanning and printing) for earn a living.
“In the early days, 200 people visited my café every day and the wait for a space could last up to two hours. we started losing business drastically around 2011 when the smartphone became popular,” says naresh kumar, 38, who runs the true education cafe in janakpuri.
according to a study by tata consultancy services, 5% of internet users in india visited internet cafes in 2013, up from 46% in 2009. during this period, home internet usage increased from 58% to 78% .
The mobile internet user base increased from 238 million in June 2014 to 306 million in December 2015, according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Phone Association of India-IMRB International.
Most internet cafe owners started in their early 20s and say it’s hard to make new plans in your late thirties.
“The income is also low. I charge 11 rs an hour, but there are still few applicants”, says khurso.
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That’s a long way from the days when the reckoning at connaught place charged 150 rs an hour, while the hourly rate in five-star hotel cafes was 800 rs. cities like bangalore had fancy internet cafes with liveried waiters.
For many, the demise of the internet cafe means the end of the milestones of their youth.
“Our customers used yahoo, hotmail and orkut chats. For my generation, Yahoo was a tech giant. (the founder of hotmail) sabeer bhatia, and not mark zuckerberg (from facebook), was our hero,” says khusro.
aman sharma, 40, from paschim vihar says it was “great” to visit internet cafes. “Not only did we learn to use the internet, but the cybercafés were a social space where we made friends. I met my girlfriend in one.”
so is it the end of internet cafe in india?
Amrita Choudhury, chairwoman of the Internet Cafe Association of India, believes they can remain relevant, giving the example of the Common Service Centre: Internet access points that provide government-to-consumer services under the Internet Cafes program. digital india.
“Internet penetration is still very low in India and there are many who cannot afford a computer or smartphone. internet cafes can bridge that digital divide, which is creating an economic divide.”
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