Can somebody please explain non-Americans' love of instant coffee?

Went around the world. Breakfasted in every city in nice hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. Outstanding food (the whole point of the trip was to try certain foods in their native habitats, so to speak). BUT. Beijing: Nescafe. Kolkata: Nescafe. Tbilisi: Nescafe. Budapest, Prague, Krakow, Warsaw: fuuucking Nescafe. Barcelona, London, ditto. It seemed so incongruous, given the international disdain for American processed foods. Only place I got a real, scratch-made cup was in Hanoi: ca fe phin is beyond primo.

Do people in these countries really believe that Nescafe Gold is an acceptable substitute for actual brewed coffee? Because all I could think of was my parents' kitchen table circa 1970 with the jar of freeze-dried Folger's.

So what gives?