Some sites are blocked by Cubans, many more by the other side (most notably Paypal).
And npm is *terrible*/impossible without VPN, also flatpak I think.
Haven't gotten out enough to Joven Clubs (which are ~100+ computer-ed focused youth orgs). Wonder what they teach re VPNs. It's complicated.

No, I tend to keep local copies of everything already :)

But it would've been helpful to focus on developing, packaging and spreading offline services. Maps are pretty okay now (OsmAnd and now Organic Maps on desktop!!!!!!!!), but you still can't really apt-get local wikipedia, or ChatGpt.

4G is available. Both are semi-reliable and not fast. But not terrible ... if you're used to it.
It will get much better now, I suppose, as they just added the second uplink, which might be order(s) of magnitude better than the old one. I suspect it was about 100Gbps for the whole island.

You can contract a DSL line, that's metered by the hour. It's very expensive for Cubans (1/3 minimum wage), only accessible to tourist hosts and the bourgeoisie I suppose. And it's metered to 60h/month, after that you're paying almost a pound of mango per hour. Which is 10 cents.

Seen or heard of a few different models ... nomadic drives, per-order shops with a counter, subscriptions, self-serving PC (don't know how they meter/bill), but it's all a mildly profitable activity (low costs/lots of competition)

Yes, coinciding with both a general spread of available (up)link & clero/bourgeois protest waves, the military — that formally owns & controls the telco — put an end to SNET. Meetings happened and some people "had other ideas", but comms are a matter of national security (though not all get that)

Cooperativo cabs are taxis driving on fixed local & distance routes that'll pick you/drop you off anywhere along the lines.

Camels are giant buses that's basically anything with lots of HP with an improvised box full of people in the back

Opening bus's 3 broken swing doors by employing 6 people

The 90s books from the "special period", where collapse of USSR + Toricelli act f'd the whole economy.

"El libro de la familia"
https://archive.org/details/ellibrodelafamiliafablabulbeo2019/page/n7/mode/2up

"Con nuestros propios enfuerzas"
https://archive.org/details/ConNuestrosPropiosEsfuerzos

Pirate cable TV. Comes from another part of town, they used to cut down the wires every few months, but stopped. Serves as an indicator of power cuts in the other area.

SNET DIY wlan networks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Cuba#SNET
Not a thing anymore.

Vintage cars

Sneakernet for warez&media, like "paquete semanal", every street has a copying place

WhatsApp & TG groups for distribution signals, Some from gov (gasoline queues), some self-org for availability of rationed basic goods (on "libreta de abastecimiento").

Much youtube DIY & repairshops