Way back when I was in secondary school, one of my cousins who stayed with us bought a small phone that was said to be from MTN, as it was marketed back then. This phone came with an unlimited data bundle. Like, there was no way we could see the data balance, and it was accessing the internet crazily for eternity.
"Nduka, please come and help me download this and that and send them to us." This was how we made his phone our download centre. He would download any type of music, videos, photos and send them to us. It was when life became a little more advanced that we learnt that the SIM card that came with the phone actually came with 5GB of data.
Hold on, hope you read the part where I said we were downloading everything and accessing the internet unlimitedly for eternity? That was the value of 5GB of data in those days.
If I had the power to bring back an era to life, it would surely be the era where 1MB of data was very valuable and meaningful.
I'm proud to have already been in existence during that era, and we didn't spend up to 1% of the amount of money we are spending on data in this current era.
I really love the songs from that era. I mean, the full length of songs was just 150KB, 200KB and so on in size. We were downloading videos and movies that were below 1MB and, hey, they were very clear. That was because the devices we had then were not as sophisticated as what we have now. So, everything was very compatible.
In those days, 10MB would serve us for more than a week, and it's not like the data was just subscribed to and left without using it. We were always online, chatting and doing all manner of things on social media, downloading music, videos, games, photos and so many other things. Those days were just too fine. Can't we go back to those days? Lol.
You know, I have questioned, many times, the speedy advancement of the technology world. Why did they have to bring us to this stage? We were fine then; we were very comfortable with the quality of videos and everything that now seems very low in this era. Why did they have to increase the quality of phones and data for us? If they had not brought us this far, we wouldn't have known that there was a world to come where 5GB, which lasted my cousin for eternity, could be finished just by scrolling on TikTok or Instagram in a day.
No lies, we are all happy about the advanced technology we have now, but we are paying heavily for it. In one way or the other, everyone has complained about the amount of money they spend on data these days, and the worst part is that it's going to keep increasing because more sophisticated software and, in fact, everything, are being introduced into the world daily, and they come with heavy data consumption, which will lead to us paying more.
I want to go back to the days when 10MB was all I needed to surf the internet for a week.
Thanks for reading.
Photo: Chatgpt