Perhaps in the
Americas, where there are more
internet connections than you can
shake a stick at, an
internet cafe would be a shitty choice to get on the
internet. I know, because I had a cozy
ethernet LAN connection at
Cornell. Now for my brief stay in
Shanghai, I'm stuck with a pathetically slow
dialup, which can barely access to
American sites without timing out. As I speak, I'm going through a
proxy server in
Hong Kong in order to connect to
E2.
In China, the internet cafe is a much better alternative, because they usually offer fairly decent connections (>ISDN, pretty good in China) at minimal prices. In addition, most internet cafes have LAN's set up for gamers to play multiplayer games. Not bad at all. I don't know why it's called a cafe, they don't even serve drinks.
Also, these are the only places where you can find people who really thirst for the internet. See A glimpse at the Chinese internet scene.