Cyberspace for 25¢

In 1991, Wayne Gregori wanted to bring the internet to the people, and not just the usual computer people who were already on BBSes. He and his wife, Jill, realized they could put coin-operated computers in public spaces that were used by a wider range of people, and thus the Internet Café was born. By 1995, there were a few more, like the @ Cafe, one of New York City’s first internet cafes

And Finnish capital Helsinki’s internet cool...

Helsinki CompuCafe video from 1995 from Larri Helminen on Vimeo.

Gizmodo covered the weird, sketchy history of internet cafes in 2015, including Wayne's role in the start of all this, and how they became centers for gamers, allowing people to play the newest games on the newest computers. The internet café was replaced by the gamer café. But where's Wayne?

His bio on Speakerhub lists him as "a technologist and entrepreneur that has the rare talent of translating the complex world of Bitcoin and blockchain out of the abstract and into concrete, real world examples in a fluid and entertaining manner."

In 1995, Wayne said "for some people SF Net is sheer entertainment, for others it is the support network they never had, and still for others it is simply a way to get a little closer to people and make life more enjoyable." SF Net filled that for a while, but not for the long haul.

The website for his coin-op internet access, SFnet.com, was captured in 1996, when it offered the chance to "build your own eccentric online world by accomodating the odd-balls and free-thinkers who frequent the cafes and bars in your area." But by 1997, it was reborn as a rental and room-mate finding service, and the next year, it had a similar logo but was now a database to webpage integration service. For a while, it was associated with a "sales intelligence exchange," before going dormant for years. In 2011, it was reborn as the San Francisco Resource Link Network, but that didn't last, either. The domain was for sale for a period, and now it's home to the Secured Finance Network.