As to the influence of wifi on mess life, it’s just indicative of today’s societal norms. At its heart, a healthy mess life revolved around a few wets. No difference at shore messes. I’d been a PO2 for a year when the C&POs in Esquimalt opened. Compared to the dump it replaced in Naden, it was palatial. Popular for a few years, then it was quite obvious it was a white elephant as attitudes around booze, primarily from my cohort, changed. None us wanted to be the PO2 or highr, pissed to the gills in a 3 mess steamer at morning stand-easy, that we used to work for.
The past is a foreign country.