Today I am proud to be an earthling. AT&T has announced that it will finally lift the burden of unlimited data plans for smartphones. No longer will I have to say to myself, “I am tired of trying to make the most of what I pay for.” Like a wise king, AT&T has decided for us, its loyal subjects, that all we need really in life, in the totality of existence, is 2GB of data per month—or, for some of us, only 200MB of data! Either one! You see, AT&T simply knows more than any of us could ever hope to know. Thank you, AT&T, for being a shining beacon of hope in our otherwise bleak, bleak world.
After all, who could ever hope to use more than 2GB of data per month while using the mobile Internet? Nobody uses Netflix, nobody uses Hulu, nobody uses YouTube, nobody watches Major League Baseball, nobody listens to Pandora, nobody listen to Sirius XM, nobody uses turn-by-turn navigation with full color maps. There’s no need for any of that in a smartphone! Why else do we see things like “200MB of data is enough to send hundreds of e-mails…”? Obviously it’s only accurate, honest, and sincere to measure people’s Internet usage in the year 2010 by how many plain text e-mails they can send.
I mean, Wi-Fi is so prevalent, right? Sure, the days of unprotected access points surrounding us have long since come to a close, and you’re lucky to find an access point at, say, an airport that doesn’t charge $20 per hour for the privilege of reading ESPN.com, but come on!
Not only that, but AT&T is directly passing the savings to us! Now, instead of $30 per month for the headache of unlimited data, we only have to pay $25! And no more headache! I hate headaches! That’s a $5 savings. That’s enough to buy, I don’t know, two gallons of milk, or maybe one giant Slurpee. Hmm… unlimited data to use the Internet as intended or enough sugar to kill an elephant? No contest.
The Free Press says that “today’s heavy user [of data] is tomorrow’s average user.” Nonsense! We will always, now and forever, be content with a 2GB cap. Anyone who needs more is simply being greedy and has no regard for their fellow man.
Hopefully Verizon Wireless and the other providers follow AT&T’s brave lead. And hopefully developers and start-ups stop trying to come out with fun and exciting and useful Apps that require more than a couple kilobytes of data. Maybe if these people would look at this from AT&T’s perspective, and realize that it’s simply not practical to invest the billions of dollars in profit it rakes in every year to upgrade and maintain its network.
There’s billions of galaxies in the known universe. I’m just happy that I happen to live in the one galaxy that has AT&T looking out for my best interests.