Ah yeah fair points but one question, what’s email? 
In 1998 I went to Malta with my parents and one of the days I went off on my own around Valetta. I told my folks I was going to try find an Internet Café. My dad thought it highly unlikely. Within 5 minutes I spotted one. Funnily enough I think the days of net cafés are swiftly coming to an end thanks to modern mobile phones.
They’re still a growing industry in Thailand etc. because of insane data roaming charges. I guess one trend I see more of now is individual establishments offering wireless to their customers, and those customers using their own laptops or smartphones - that’s probably the future. So I think you’ll be right eventually, but not yet.
The Internet cafes in Thailand, especially the ones away from the tourist areas, now tend to specialize in video games, to attract the neighborhood children who may belong to one of the many families here that still don’t have a computer. It’s actually becoming something of a problem, akin to youths hanging out in pool halls in old days in the West. But they can still rustle you up an Internet connection if you need one.
I miss going to the video store or the public library with my grandparents. Between my e-reader and the internet, I’ve had maybe two practical reasons to goto the non-university library since I got internet back in…1995, I think? '96?
Ok, exaggerating a bit. The library didn’t become wholly obsolete until I got a DSL connection. Now it’s just a glorified DVD and video game rental service for people too poor or cheap for Netflix.
Thanks, dear. I’ll tell that to the hundreds of people I helped be educated, entertained, and inspired yesterday.
I had to look up an old version of a relatively common magazine the other day that I assumed the main library would have (I live in Seattle). Secretly, I yearned for the thrill of needing to use microfiche.
I bussed it over to downtown, headed over to the reference librarian in the periodicals section, and asked about back issues of my magazine.
To my dismay, she led me over to the computers and told me that, while the library doesn’t have them, I can just access them online. I don’t even have to be physically in the library- I can login to the library system with my library card number and go from there. All the back articles were online in PDF format.
I was disappointed. I didn’t even have to come into the library! I could have done it all from home. So much for my romantic little library trip 
Hey, you wanna microfilm? I gotta yo microfilm. Got four high school students on it right now!
I never had to catalogue the microfilm, but I did have to organize the phone books. Oh God, the phone books. People, why can you not put a phone book back where you got it? It’s dead simple! The name of the place is on BIG HUGE LETTERS on the spine. Although we did only organize the phone books once in a blue moon, since it was the transition to Internet era so more people just checked online.
Anyway, mine is pretty specific, but I miss the days before digital media just for the sake of anime. People say piracy has killed the music and movie industries? Hah, that’s nothing compared to what it did to anime companies.
A lot of people in this thread are talking about missing record stores and getting the knowledgeable employees to play a new record for them. I miss that same ability to go to the comic store, check out what new VHS tapes they got in for rent and watching them at midnight in a dark room adjusting the tracking on the VCR. Now kids just run through series without getting attached knowing anything they want is a torrent link away.
Ooooh, I also miss games designed for single player. We’ve got so many great game companies on the 360 making games focused on online multiplayer, I’d love to see what Bungie would do now for a single player title if given the resources Microsoft had given them for the Halo sequels (yes, I know, Bungie is on its own now).
Used books store were so better stocked, before Amazon Marketplace.
There was always a treasure to find.
This 
You don’t necessarily need to go anywhere for that. I once had sheriff’s deputies turn up at my door to inform me that a friend was worried about me because I hadn’t responded to e-mail in three days.
When I was a kid, I got a new volume of the Golden Book Encyclopedia every week (?) when my mom went grocery shopping, and I read those things cover to cover more times than I can think. When we kids were older, my father bought us a good old fashioned set of real encyclopedias, which I ALSO read cover to cover…I would hit up every bookstore looking for my favorite authors and hit pay dirt according to no rhyme or reason, a new book was either there or it wasn’t year to year. Used bookstores, the same - I found a dozen used hard cover copies of my favorite author in one of them, and you’d think I’d won the lottery!..I remember song lyrics used to be, sometimes, printed in these thin little magazines that you could buy down at Rexall Drugs, near the 12 cent Marvel comic books…And other books, on arts and crafts and hobbies, and cookbooks - well, I still buy those! … But all this stuff is available on my little white magic box now. Pre-internet, you had to work to get knowledge, you had to wait and see if books would show up, or if a new record by your favorite group would show up at Grants. If you wanted to learn to knit, you had to ask someone to take you over to grandma’s. … Well, that’s all in the past. But it kept us busy, much as the internet keeps us busy now. Good times.
One thing I can think of is getting to films.
Now with the internet and texting etc, buzz is incredibly fast. A movie can be dead in a matter of days, and if you dont get to it quickly, you can find its gone to matinee before you get to see it. Of course theres a much good chance Ill think its a stinker too if its dying that fast, but not always.
The other thing I miss is not having to do computer support for people. Being the guy in the family who does know about them can get old at times, because people are much more dependent on them now for primary communication.
Finally its the pressure to post pictures. People want to pass family events on to friends etc, so theres more ‘have you done it yets’ than I remember. Previously they’d just say it in text.
Otara
I’ve certainly noticed movie runs seem to be shorter nowadays- when a movie I want to see comes out, it seems like I’ve got maybe a fortnight to go and see it before it’s run ends, and then I’ve got to wait a couple of months for it come out on DVD.
Pen Pals. I liked writing to someone from a country I’d likely never visit and hearing about their lives and experiences there. Now, it’s all out there. It was more personal back then. Although, I know many bloggers would say the opposite. I just miss seeing that letter in the mailbox that was just for me.
This continued in the early days of the Internet when I would correspond with people I met on the BBS or in chat during my Free Trial(s) of AOL. I still write to the small number of people I met this way. They number around a dozen, but I think is better than saying I know 5000 on Facebook, which I’ll never join.
Useless information in general falls into that category. Long gone are the days when I often was asked “HOW and WHY do you know that??” Now anyone can browse wikipedia or other random websites and learn all sorts of cool but useless things.