Throwback: Mobile internet circa 2008

I wrote about my failure to become one with the mobile internet back in 2008. My focus was on my disagreement with Rich Miner‘s thesis at the time that the reason people weren’t using mobile devices for internet access at the expected levels was because of problems with the user interface (UI). I still disagree with that point he was making back then. The link in my 2008 post no longer works, but you can get the gist of it from how what I say. You can also try this article link on Technology Review, but it is behind a paywall so I can’t say whether it matches my recollections.

UI is just fine

I disagreed with Rich Miner about UI being the determining factor in mobile internet usage. I would still say the same thing today: the UI of both Android and iPhone are more than good enough for a user to take advantage of internet available services. The main improvement in the past 18 years has been in the domain of mobile-capable websites: rich interface adaptive UI websites make it far more practical to navigate around the web with a browser.

My own site, the one you are looking at right now, looks pretty good on an iPhone or iPad: definitely readable if not actually elegant. This is not through any great effort on my part, either. The WordPress themes that support mobile UIs became commonplace about a decade ago and have gotten better in the years since. This is the one aspect of Rich’s commentary that I agree with, but I would argue that it isn’t a matter of mobile UI but rather of the websites we visit being adaptive to our devices.

Mobile data costs are still too high… but more reasonable data limits

I have had an iPhone since about 2011 when I transitioned off of Rogers just to get one. I have used it with mobile data services since the beginning, and the main thing that has changed is the amount of data I am allotted each month. It is now about $80 a month for 500 GB. That is, if recollection serves, about one thousand times as much data as I got back in 2011 for a similar fee. Overages are not charged at an exorbitant rate either- instead your access speed is throttled to reduce load on the network.

But $80 a month is still a high fee to pay for data compared to what is paid in other regions for similar or better service. I rarely get anything approaching full speed 5G internet where I live, yet I pay the full price for it. I think a more reasonable monthly fee would be around $40 a month for the same service. This would put the costs in line with European rates although Asian costs are even lower, and apparently 5G data rates are more common in those areas. But the telecommunications companies in Canada at least seem to be stuck in a profit-maximization loop and I can’t see a price reduction anywhere in our future.

Conclusion

I’ve undoubtedly over-simplified what Rich Miner was saying back in 2008. And I would bet that his thoughts today have changed and grown from what he was saying back then. But my position based on my quick and dirty analysis of a couple of headlines is that he was wrong back then and, if he said the same thing today, I would still disagree with him.

The UI of our mobile devices is not the main inhibiting factor to our use of mobile data. It is the cost and restrictions placed on that mobile data access that cause people to use it less than they might. I would probably use close to my monthly limit some months if 5G speed was actually available in my area. Instead I barely get 5 Mbps most of the time and no usable service at all some of the time: when that changes my usage will likely change along with it. With or without changes to my phone’s UI.

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