You know, everyone always talks about how data rarely lasts these days. Just a few hours on the internet, and gigabytes worth of data would go. It’s as if there’s someone somewhere who fixed a virtual straw into the data and sucks it off every time we turn on our data. This is something that we all are used to, the ease with which data finishes, the frequency at which we have to keep subscribing…
I don’t think it is something that any one of us could like. Although I have to say that we’ve gotten used to it. Despite how often we complain about the cost of data and the ease with which it runs out, we still find ourselves going to subscribe all over again because we need it, and being offline for an extended period of time could be dangerous.
But then, if we take it back ten to fifteen years when the internet was still fairly new for most of us, the data situation then was totally different. When I had my first phone, I didn’t buy data. All I bought was N100 airtime and it came with a data bonus of 5mb which I could use for close to a week, as long as I didn’t download any games or videos. If I was just busy on Facebook, 2go, and the like, my data was sure to last.
However, with time, data began to get more expensive. 5mb that we could use for more than a few days began to only last for less than a few, and it’s not as if we’re using them for different things. We’re doing the same things, but now it’s more expensive. It was just as if the network companies were adjusting the rates so that the more you browse, the more you spend.
However, when you think about it, did the companies really change anything? What if the rate we used to browse all those years ago is the same as the rates we browse today? The only difference is how we browse and the related factors that go into it.
If we think about it, browsing only got expensive as phones got more advanced. When we were using Java and Symbian phones, we browsed pretty well. However, a change was noticed when Blackberry came into play. Then Android came into play and the data consumption increased. Now, we have smartphones and the amount of money we spend on data can give any weak person a heart attack.
You see, the problem is not from the network companies, the problem is from technology itself. The quality of the browsing experience has increased 10X since the days of Java phones. Today, many of you would be furious if you were browsing on Facebook or Instagram and you saw pictures with low quality. Or if you were watching skits and it just wasn’t as clear as you would like it to be. That was how things used to be.
There was a time when 3GP was the best media format for devices. But then, we moved on to MP4, and now we have Hd. Most of the movies and skits we watch online are shot on 4k cameras to give the best quality possible, pictures are the same, that’s why you’ll see some pictures being as big as 15mb while a video of a minute can be close to 200 Mb.
Now imagine watching hundreds of such videos online, and scrolling through thousands of such pictures. It just won’t last. Now that so many platforms support videos, we are even more tempted to watch them and spend more data. From Facebook to Instagram, TikTok, and even X, everywhere we turn, we have people shoving videos and pictures of high-quality and data-sucking monsters in our faces. And we can’t do anything but watch them all.
So, what am I saying in earnest? I just feel we should cut the network companies some slack. Of course, they have their issues! However, in this data thing, browsing just can’t be what it used to be years ago. We’ve advanced way too much for that and it’s only going to get worse because technology will only advance, and picture and video quality will only get better. It will mean bigger-sized files that would dig deeper holes into the wells of our data.
So, my dear friends, if you want to try stopping paying excessively for data, maybe you can consider switching back to Java or Symbian phones. Because at this point, the way forward is quite expensive!
