Due to minimal supervision and cheap access, many Warnets (especially the illegal, back-alley ones) became hotspots for accessing adult content. This fueled public anxiety linking the Warnet to moral decay and petty crime, such as skimming or hacking low-security accounts.

Society often labeled frequent visitors as "Anak Warnet" (Warnet kids)—stereotyped as truant students, thin from skipping meals to save money for gaming, or potential criminals. In many kampung (villages), mothers would raid Warnets at midnight to drag their sons home.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, the Warnet was the only gateway to the digital world. Before IndiHome or 4G signals reached kecamatan (districts), the Warnet was a great equalizer. A street vendor’s child could sit next to a rich kid, paying Rp 3,000–6,000 per hour to access Facebook, Friendster, or cheat databases for Point Blank . The Social Issue of Access: The Warnet filled the gap where the state and private sector failed. For millions of low-income families, buying a personal computer was impossible. The Warnet became the informal classroom for digital literacy. Many rural nganggur (unemployed youth) learned basic IT skills—typing, email, resume creation—not in school, but at a smoky Warnet.