I lived just around the corner when Cyberia, definitely the UK’s and possibly the world’s first ever internet café, opened in 1994. (Naturally, a couple other places have since put in claims they opened first.)

Reading an article today about the founding of Cyberia, I saw this:

And then there was the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Eva had to fly out there to negotiate for the “Cyberia.com” domain name they had bought. “It was a proper barn with horse carts and a wall of modems as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company. Apparently, there was always one family nominated to be the tech support,” she remembers.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe-cyberia-london/

  • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    11 hours ago

    Thanks for sharing this, I find the Amish practices and work arounds for technology really fascinating for some reason. I’d love to tour some of the more technology permissive Amish communities and learn about their rules and restrictions on its use, but unfortunately there’s not any living in my area (not to mention needing to get approval to be shown around).