More than 10,000 Internet cafes are closed in a year, which is equivalent to 30 Internet cafes disappearing from the world every day, from hormonal paradise to sunset industry, Internet cafes may soon become history.
Why is it 10 yuan and 20 yuan an hour, and the Internet café still doesn't make money?
According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of domestic Internet cafes in 23 years has decreased by nearly 45,000 compared with 19 years, which is equivalent to 10,000 Internet cafes closing down every year.
Transformation and upgrading of high-end, adding billiards, coffee, board games, mahjong, and KTV to Internet cafes are almost sewn into entertainment complexes, but why don't young people buy it? Are Internet cafes really "abandoned" by young people?
When we look at this industrial earthquake with the microscope of economics, we will find that the deep logic of the earth's crustal movement is far more magical than the surface.
Let there be no leeks in the world that are easy to cut, I am your bankrupt sister Newton, bankruptcy sisters are our new topic, mainly focusing on the grievances of the business world, students who want to watch the series remember to pay attention, and the next one to go bankrupt is the Internet café industry.
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The paradox of history lies in the fact that China's most profitable industries are often born in the most vigorous rigid needs of the people.
The explosive growth of Internet cafes is essentially a conspiracy between "technology inclusion" and "entertainment hunger".
Every greasy keyboard is the equivalent of a toll booth on the information superhighway.
When the post-80s generation is still using the motto of "study hard and make progress every day", the post-90s generation has taken the lead in realizing "QQ freedom". Around 2000, "Legend", "Fantasy Journey to the West", "Warcraft" and other terminal games were popular, and Internet cafes became a holy place for young people to form teams to "open the black", and in 2001, the number of Tencent online at the same time exceeded 1 million, and soon 100,000 players poured into the first day of the "Legend" open beta.
In 1996, one of the earliest Internet cafes in China, "Weigate", debuted in Shanghai at a sky-high price of 40 yuan per hour, when pork was only 2-3 yuan per catty, and the monthly salary of ordinary people was only four or five hundred yuan.
In 1998, Beijing Feiyu Internet Cafe created the "Internet fee + instant noodles" business model, which is essentially the ultimate interpretation of time arbitrage.
When the per capita disposable income of urban residents was only 5,425 yuan, the owners of Internet cafes creatively developed a "time stratification pricing system": 20 yuan/hour during the day to harvest business people, 10 yuan/hour at night to siphon student parties, and create traffic gimmicks during the free hours in the early morning.
This pricing strategy is as sophisticated as an airline's revenue management system.
At that time, there was only one criterion for judging whether a boy was rich and handsome, whether he dared to order 6 yuan of Master Kong's braised beef noodles and a roast sausage when he was in an Internet café for the night.
During the SARS epidemic in 2003, the Internet café industry accidentally discovered the "public health event hedging model" - when the real world shut down, the virtual world exploded. This counter-cyclical nature has allowed Internet cafes to expand wildly at an average annual growth rate of 23% in 03-08.
From 2003 to 2016, the number of Internet cafes in China surged from less than 10,000 to 152,000, and the annual profit of a single store could reach one million.
The profiteering code of the Internet café is simple and crude: "Internet speed is king, seats are filled".
My godfather of the Internet café with whom I fought all the year round in junior high school once taught me the scriptures: "The core competitiveness of this industry is three points - the computer can be turned on, the air conditioner can be refrigerated, and the toilet is not clogged." "
A computer runs 20 hours a day, charging 3-5 yuan per hour, and the single-day revenue easily exceeds 3,000 yuan, and the cost can be paid back in half a year. The characteristics of low threshold and high return have made countless people pour into the industry, and even gave birth to "black Internet cafes" - they hide in rental houses and billiard halls, using inferior equipment and illegally accepting minors to maintain huge profits.
The key to the establishment of the Internet café format is actually two things:
The internet is scarce and computer games are booming.
At that time, children wanted to access the Internet at a low cost, except for the school computer room that could only be entered by wearing shoe covers, there was almost only one option, the Internet café.
But why do you have to go online?
Because of the game.
Internet cafes and games are deeply bound.
Internet cafes have almost always been synonymous with computer games, from Warcraft, Interstellar, CS, to CF, DNF, League of Legends, to Overwatch, PUBG, APEX.
With just the name of the game, you can sketch out the three glorious eras of the Internet café.
The memory of Internet cafes in our generation is nothing more than playing black games with my brothers, shouting nice against the smell of smoke.
But the problem now is that the foundation of the Internet café is gone.
Is the internet still scarce?
It's already in excess.
The old lady in the village can pull me to talk about the current situation of South Korean politics for half an hour, and what happens in the global village, no one can compare with the speed of Chinese melons.
Moreover, computers are not a rare commodity now, the price is getting lower and lower, and the configuration is getting higher and higher.
Young people almost have a computer in their hands, and mainstream games can cover it, if they are not forced to do so, who has nothing to do with spending money on second-hand smoke in an Internet café?
Again, who rules that you can only play computer games when playing games?
The new generation is all mobile gamers.
They don't know the Internet café and just want to go to the Xiaomi House.
Nowadays, many Internet café owners have added a mobile phone e-sports area to their stores, which can only be said to be an afterthought.
The real turning point for the industry came in 2008.
With the manifestation of "Moore's Law" in the PC market, the price of assembly machines has fallen at a rate of 18% per year. At this time, Internet café owners are faced with a Hamlet-like choice: whether to continue to be an "electronic second landlord" or transform into a "high-end e-sports club"?
When I was researching in Guangdong, I saw the most magical industrial upgrading:
An Internet café spent millions of dollars to introduce a "liquid nitrogen cooling system", but it turned out that customers still care most about whether there is soot in the keyboard. The absurdity of "frying eggs with aerospace technology" is the epitome of the dilemma of the transformation of the Internet café industry.
The hardware requirements for esports games are growing exponentially. The cost of a high-end gaming computer exceeds 10,000 yuan, but the unit price of Internet cafes is difficult to increase. Taking Chengdu as an example, the investment of medium-sized e-sports stadiums requires 7 million yuan, and the payback period has been extended from half a year to 3-5 years.
In 2013, the 4G license was issued, and the mobile Internet opened a dimensionality reduction blow to Internet cafes. But few people have noticed that there was a precise "digital guillotine" for this massacre:
- In 2014, the mobile game version of "Dota Legend" was launched, and the turnover exceeded 200 million in the first month
- In 2015, the public beta of "Honor of Kings" exceeded 50 million online per day
- In 2017, the "chicken" mobile game caused the sales of mobile phone radiators to soar by 300%
Behind these data is the precise interception of mobile game users to terminal game users. When the post-00s can complete a full set of actions in the bed, such as opening black, socializing, and kryptonite, the "space value" of the Internet café will be deconstructed into a pure cost burden.
The scale of China's e-sports market has exceeded 100 billion, but the resources of top events are monopolized by live broadcast platforms such as Huya and Douyu, and Internet cafes can only attract customers by holding amateur competitions, and the profit model is still single. Jay Chou's "Mojie E-sports" will also collapse in 2021.
When the industry collapses, there are no miracles.
In Akihabara, Tokyo, I have seen the most sci-fi case of Internet café transformation: Internet café + capsule hotel + manga house + shower room, forming a two-dimensional ecological closed loop. This kind of "physical plug-in" innovation is essentially to achieve the ultimate ping effect, and at the same time, it is also like a "tombstone museum" carved for those who are still nostalgic.
The operation of domestic bosses is even wilder: some e-sports hotels will provide electric beds + Japanese food + script killing, and even a full set of services to accompany play.
The "plastic chair + instant noodles" package of traditional Internet cafes has become a new digital baby, and these seemingly performance art attempts are actually the survival instinct of small and medium-sized businesses in the traffic desert. Just like when Internet cafes used the "Legend" private server to retain players, today's transformation is essentially a cyber interpretation of the same survival logic.
A friend of mine who runs an Internet café once lamented: "We are a generation that has been run over by the times, just like the video halls and telephone booths of the past, destined to live only in memories."
In the second-hand computer market in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, piles of retired graphics cards from Internet cafes are waiting to be disassembled. These chips, which have rendered countless dreams of young heroes, will eventually be extracted as precious metals at a price of 0.38 yuan/gram. Next to them, brand new mobile phones and computer graphics cards are being shipped in bulk, with the eye-catching slogan printed on the box: "Play anytime, anywhere, when you want".
This metaphorical image is perhaps the best commentary on the history of the demise of Internet cafes: when "anytime, anywhere" becomes a passport to a new era, those clumsy rituals that require "here and now" will eventually become an archaeological site for digital natives to understand their fathers.
Just like one day in the future, when children point to the "League of Legends" skin and ask "why is this called Internet café privilege", we can only light an e-cigarette and rebuild the old world full of sweat and cheers in the metaverse.
At this moment, on the cashier counter of the last traditional Internet café, a warm reminder written with a marker pen can be vaguely seen next to the mottled QR code: "Red Bull will be sent overnight, and it can be stored overnight". This line of handwriting that is about to disappear may be the gentlest full stop in the history of digital disconnection between two generations.
Internet cafes, once regarded as beasts of the flood, now seem to be nothing more than the maternity wards of digital civilization.
Those disappearing Internet cafes are like terracotta warriors and horses in the digital age, sealing our youthful memories. When the post-00s check in Liyue Harbor in Genshin Impact, they may not know that there is a place where the keyboard has recorded the heartbeat of an entire generation.
Looking back at the 30-year history of the rise and fall of China's Internet cafes, it is a microcosm of the history of China's Internet evolution, from the aristocratic privilege of 40 yuan per hour to the national carnival of mobile games, which is essentially a history of the technological equality movement.
When everyone is living on mobile phones and mobile Internet nowadays, perhaps it is time to say to that small space full of smoke, sweat and cheers: "Thank you for your company, and there will be no time in the future."
When I was on the streets of Hangzhou late at night, looking at those e-sports hotels and Internet cafes still stubbornly flashing neon, I suddenly understood:
Internet cafes are never killed by mobile games,
It's like Kodak wasn't killed by a digital camera.
When we no longer need that refuge filled with the smell of smoke, the smell of sweat and the smell of instant noodles, it is not the times that have abandoned the Internet café.
Instead, we buried our own rivers and lakes with our own hands.
When we discuss the demise of Internet cafes, perhaps it is time to change our perspective: it is not that Internet cafes need young people, but that young people will always need a "third place". We have freed our bodies with mobile devices, but imprisoned our souls in countless information cocoons.
Back then, I skipped class and went to an Internet café to fight side by side with my friends, but now even my friends only meet in the Douyin comment area, and what is really passing away is the clumsy era that required "physical presence" to resonate.
Only then will we understand that the Internet café has never disappeared, it has just changed its form and continues to contain the loneliness and enthusiasm of each generation. It's like those cities that have seen four o'clock in the morning when they have a night out, there are always people who are young, and there are always screens that are shining.
So don't cry my old buddy, open your phone and order Master Kong, and read this post while eating on the balcony - loneliness at the moment is the best cyberpunk.
I am Newton, a leek-guarding guard, pay attention to me, let there be no leeks in the world that are easy to cut, and disperse.
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