Nairobi, Sept. 2 -- More than 15 computer monitors sit empty at Lillian's cyber cafe on Nairobi's Tom Mboya Street, a reminder of how technology changed a business that was once at the heart of Kenya's digital revolution.

On a recent afternoon, only one customer is browsing at the partitioned cafe. Lillian, who has run the business for 20 years, is seated at an empty cubicle watching TikTok videos, while her sole assistant watches YouTube videos at the reception desk.

It is a far cry from the years when customers streamed into cyber cafes to print documents, send emails, apply for jobs, and catch up with their friends on Facebook and the now-defunct Google+.

Internet shops in Kenya boomed in the late 2000s and early 2010s in the cities...