I remember doing this at the Embassy Suits probably around 2002.
Most still do, they have an “office” where I often print things I need for work when traveling.
“The Business Center”. They have dwindled over the years
This is still very much a thing, in the US at least.
Where have you seen it? Any particular chains?
I’ve seen it at the various Marriott and Hilton chains. There will be a small “business center” room off of the lobby with a few basic computers and maybe even a printer.
I don’t travel much but I drive for doordash for extra cash. Basically every motel I go to still has that public office room with a couple computers and a printer in there. La Quinta, motel 6 just off the top of my head.
Literally everything that’s not a hotel 6 quality stay.
I remember one that “reset” after each user, so no information was retained.
OR SO I THOUGHT
Oh man i remember visiting japan solo when i was 18 and using the hotel computer in the lobby to research places to go and see each day, how to get to places like akihabara and where to go once there for the best shit.
Printing out a couple of pages of info for the next day ahead. Those were the days. Travel and tourism with maps in your pockets these days really ruins the sense of discovery and adventure that you got before then, I try to avoid using any of that shit but my gf is always pulling out her phone and ruining it xD
Worth expanding on, for the younger crowd:
“Like, the library” refers to the 2000s all the way back to the 1980s, when libraries (universities, then public, of course) had computers available (and eventually wifi) for all visitors. Some even offered networks after that point that extended a fair distance from their building, and didn’t turn off between open & close.
Wild times. wistful, distant look
WiFi wasn’t invented until 1997 and even then nobody had any devices that could use it. It wasn’t common until the mid 2000’s. They would have computers you could use because most people didn’t own a computer.
Fair point, I was getting memories mixed up, yeah. It’s been a minute. 🙇🏼♂️😅
We used to check out software at the library on floppy disks. Imagine that.
Further back (same time, maybe?), us kids’d type in line after line of code in order to program the video game from scratch that came printed inside whatever issue of your favorite gaming mag you had on hand. 🥲
*Conan, you bastard. So much code, but it was worth it to experience at that reverse age what the Sunk Cost Fallacy felt like *
A hotel I stayed at a few years ago (pre-pandemic) had a computer there, in a corner, so to speak. Pretty sure I’d go there once a day to browse my preferred forum on the topic of Internet Addiction. I was active enough there, I was eventually offered an opportunity to take over as a mod. But then the mod said they were holding on for sentimental reasons or something and instead told everyone they were shutting down, and told us to download any posts we wanted to keep. I did not do that, thinking I’d just Wayback Machine into it. But I later learned that’s not how that works, as the forum was not there in its completeness, ready to be browsed freely. Also, this all before that Netflix documentary that had gone popular, and I also don’t recall hearing “touch grass” as an expression back then. Simpler times, it now feels like. Miss 'em. I was already familiar with some of the folks behind the documentary, though. I was familiar with Tristan Harris back when the Center for Humane Tech was Time Well Spent instead. Pretty sure it all started from within Gmail or something, with a slideshow Tristan made on the topic of design and ‘hacking’ people for attention (e.g. red notification bubbles, as red grabs one’s attention)
This is an odd story.
How so?
Free?
