China’s Internet cafes: The Reality
Paul Denlinger has a good post today describing the reality of China’s Internet cafes, what I’ve often described as China’s digital opium dens. Some of these “wang ba” are modern, glitzy affairs, but often they are dingy holes that could justifiably be shut down for safety and hygeine reasons. Of course there is a political and social reason for the government to limit the spread of them, but the picture is more complex.
Paul writes:
Let me tell you something about these Internet cafes and their users. For the most part, these Internet cafes are shitholes and firetraps. And the people who go there are young, single, low-income males. They do not bring their dates there. The places are smoky, dingy and poorly lit. They sell some basic food and beverages in the front, and also charge people a fee to sleep overnight on the dirty, bug-infested, stained futons which pass for couches. If you want a truly terrible experience, visit their bathrooms.
These are dirty decrepit places in every way; they are just filthy. If fire safety laws were actually enforced, they would be shut down. And the people who spend their day playing games are, in my opinion, China’s new urban permanent underclass. Why do they go to Internet cafes? Because most of them are from outside Beijing and Shanghai, and the Internet cafe is the cheapest place to go to. They can get by spending 20-30 yuan (US$5-6) a day, including food, drink, games and a place to sleep.
The characters are sad characters; if they were living in England 150 years ago, Charles Dickens would be writing about them. From the Chinese perspective, although games and the Internet are highly addictive, Internet cafes serve a useful purpose. Otherwise these people would be on the street, unemployed. The Internet cafe today in China is what gin and beer was to England’s working class in the mid-19th century when Karl Marx was writing Das Kapital about the evils of class exploitation.
Now, if you were an advertiser, would you want to reach this audience? It all depends.
I can attest to what he has observed, as Beijing has a number of them in hutong areas that are hideous. Read his entire post for more insights into measuring China’s Internet users.
October 10th, 2007 23:08
[…] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here […]
October 22nd, 2007 20:00
[…] China tech-watcher Paul Denlinger’s post about the country’s decrepit internet cafes (which he calls “shitholes and firetraps“) has been making the rounds among the China blogging elite lately. Beijing-based Wikipedia expert Andrew Lih agreed with Denlinger’s view in rather milder language, calling them “digital opium dens.” Kaiser Kuo, a CER alumnus who’s gone on to bigger and better things - like being Ogilvy’s China new media boss, also riffed on Denlinger’s views. […]
October 31st, 2007 03:46
Yes, I agree. But you want quality nice and decorated with no smoking in China Internet Cafe, possible. Push the rate per hour to 10RMB/HR ban smoking, maybe it will work. For now, 2rmb per hour = anyone can go in, especially for those who do not have computers at home and need to link themselves to some Mei-mei in QQ lol.