The new gaming rules in China will probably doom the over 150,000 - 200,000 internet and gaming cafes that were at one point essential to Chinese youth.
Remembering them with a🧵and some memories...
Internet cafes were the traditional 3rd place for chinese youth: found everywhere, open 24/7, cheap and without proper adult supervision.
Mostly smoky rooms in darkness. Loud. At the entrance, you pay in cash and get assigned a modded, cobbled together PC for your stay.
In 2010 20% of all internet users in China used one, since then the number is falling.
But among the youth this was the place to meet, away from the prying eyes of society, and play cracked games and watch videos with friends till the early hours of the morning.
Each cafe was different, but in spirit they were all the same: chaos ruled, rules were lax to non-existent.
Bring your own drink, bring your dog, dress up, watch what you want, game what you want, be as loud as you want.
They had drinks, of course incredibly sweet softdrinks, and food. Years later, I still try to recreate the spicy noodles of my favourite internet cafe.
The MSG and spice mixes, chillis and oils might have changed my sense of taste forever.
Let's not talk about the kitchen.
People stayed till they needed to head home, or they stayed a bit longer and fell asleep during their session.
In a world without Fortenite and mobile games this was the Third place Starbucks could only dream of.
While @instagram and @mosseri just announced that they are pausing the work on Instagram Kids, @BytedanceTalk went already a step further: This week Youth Mode for Douyin, China's TikTok, launched.
Let's take a look in a quick overview 🧵 on the background and features...
1/ The decision comes after continued warnings and crackdown by regulators.
Already in 2018 China's regulators aimed to limit the time spend online by minors, citing rising levels of near-sightedness.
2/ This year the regulators defined hard rules: people under 18 got their game time restricted to 1 hour a day between 8 PM to 9 PM on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
This is regulated on the supply side - meaning the developers can only offer their games to kids for these hours
1/ The EU proposal to make USB-C mandatory on all devices is making the rounds, so time for a quick overview 🧵 on the origin of the standard, the issues with it and what is coming next.
Let’s start: Who is behind it, what do they want and how do they make money?
2/ The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) was founded in 95 as an NGO by a group of hardware companies working on a new connector together. The idea was to create one standard to unify and replace the variety of ports connecting all the PC peripherals: Mouse, Keyboards, Printers…
3/ The founding members were Compaq, Digital, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel. Intel took the development lead back then.
Nowadays USB-IF has more than 1000 members, with the major ones being HP, NEC, Microsoft, Apple Inc., Intel, and Agere Systems.