Internet cafés are oases when travelling. Without them, when suddenly in New Delhi or Kathmandu or Toronto, there is no reliable way to let anyone know that you are safe and sound. I was recently involved in a long-drawn out series of attempts to save the life of someone who was about to be deported back to a fundamentalist Islamic country where his ordination as a Zen monk would have meant imprisonment at best, execution for every other option as conversion constitutes treason according to that country's constitution. Without internet cafés this person would have been dead instead of safe in Japan.