I travel fulltime and my primary internet is 4G LTE. But, even though I spend $250 per month on data, I still run out, and end up throttled to 128kbps for the last couple days of the data cycle. The internet is pretty much unusable at that rate. I can leave my email downloading in Thunderbird for a couple of hours and that's usable (gmail, however is not very usable), and I can read Hacker News (but not the articles linked, in most cases). Reddit kinda works at those speeds. But nearly everything else on the web is too slow to even bother with. When I hit that rate cap, I usually consider it a forced break and take a walk, cook something elaborate, and watch a movie (on DVD) or play a game.
So, yeah, the internet has gotten really fat. A lot of it seems gratuitous...but, I'm guilty of it, too. If I need graphs or something, I reach for whatever library does everything I need and drop it in. Likewise, I start with a framework like Bootstrap, and some JavaScript stuff, and by the time all is said and done, I'm pulling a couple MB down just to draw the page. Even as browsers bring more stuff into core (making things we used to need libs for unnecessary) folks keep pushing forward and we keep throwing more libraries at the problem. And, well, that's probably necessary growing pains.
Maybe someday the bandwidth will catch up with the apps. I do wish more people building the web tested at slower speeds, though. Could probably save users on mobile networks a lot of time, even if we accept that dial-up just can't meaningfully participate in the modern web.
And as for reddit, their old mobile view is still available at the "i." subdomain - it's so much lighter-weight than the dreadful JS-laden one they introduced a while back, it's the only way to use reddit on mobile IMO:
I use gmail's Basic HTML interface all the time. AJAXy gmail and Inbox balloon to incredible levels of memory use pretty quickly, and are slower for most interactions than the full-page loads on Basic HTML, which means that someone somewhere lost track of WTF they were supposed to be doing all of this for.
This is commonly stated but not true under all conditions. The full-blown GMail UI has extensive latency-hiding capabilities. The basic HTML UI has no latency-hiding features of any kind. If you are on a high-latency connection but you have some bandwidth available, you will have a much better experience with the full UI. Otherwise you face the full latency for every action.
The Inbox UI is for some reason irredeemable. It is slow under all conditions.
Reddit appears to be actively trying to hurt the mobile experience. They bought the best iPhone reddit app, and removed it from the store entirely. They are also currently trialling a version of the mobile site that does not work at all if you aren't logged in.
Personally I'd prefer they just show ads on mobile than make the experience suck on purpose.
I use to get the desktop version on my tablet (nexus 7, 2013). It worked fine, though swapping to .compact was a little easier to use.
For the last month, it's given me the new mobile version. It never remembers that I don't want to try their app (and the opt out link is both tiny and right under the giant yes please button)
But the worse part? I'm on a fast home connection, and the mobile site gives the same loading/network experience as being in the Welsh countryside.
It's a shame that their oldest mobile version, the original m.reddit.com is no longer available. It was truly the most compact way to experience the site. Barely more than a list of links.
Add .compact to the end of add reddit link (before the query) and you can still access it. A few minor things are broken but it still works well enough that I prefer it over the modern mobile site.
I have accounts with both. T-Mobile has "unlimited" for the phone, but for hotspots, there are no unlimited plans (this may not be true anymore; I think if you get the new One plan, and add the $25 international option, it includes unlimited 4G LTE data, even for hotspots). The unlimited plan for phones also de-prioritizes customers that use over a certain amount of data in a month; but it's never the device usage that is a problem for me.
Sprint is similar, only even more restrictive in their "unlimited" plans. After 28GB, they throttle the device. Hotspot usage is severely restricted (2GB in the default "unlimited" plan) unless it is specifically a plan for a hotspot (not a phone acting as a hotspot).
There was no unlimited hotspot plan on any carrier at the time I signed up for all of my plans.
Sprint was the best deal per-GB when I hit the road this time around, so I have a 40GB plan on a hotspot from Sprint, and 16GB from T-Mobile spread across two devices (a hotspot and a phone that can act as a hotspot). I end up using all 56GB most months. Each provider gets about $125/month from me.
T-Mobile further complicates things by offering Binge On, which allows me to watch Netflix without burning as much data (the video itself doesn't use data, but all of the meta data, and browsing Netflix does, so once I'm out of data, it's impossible to actually watch anything, even with Binge On).
Data over 3G/4G is complicated as hell, is what I'm trying to say, and it's going to cost a fortune if it's your primary method of getting on the internet. I need to actually confirm with the T-Mobile folks that the One plan plus the International add-on provides actual unlimited data. If it does, it'll allow me to shrink my Sprint plan by a bunch, and stop running out of data.
Also worth noting: T-Mobile used to have a smaller network than Sprint (so much so that when I was traveling in the past, even though I had a grandfathered in unlimited plan on T-Mobile, that they finally made me switch off of a few years ago, I had a Clear hotspot, as well, to fill in the coverage gaps). But, the reverse is true now. T-Mobile's network is also faster in most locations. With the new bands they've put online, T-Mobile reaches further into out-of-the-way places.
In short, "unlimited" is a lie (or was; T-Mobile may actually have an unlimited data plan, now, though I wouldn't be surprised if it still de-prioritizes heavy users...and if "heavy" means some ridiculously small number like 28GB in a month).
Edit: It used to be possible to use a tethering app on a rooted phone to work around such limits. Both networks detect hotspot usage (somehow), even with a rooted phone.
They can still throttle you after a certain level of consumption. With a recent T-Mobile promo, you could have 4 lines for the price of 2, each with its own 4G allotment... so if I ever experience throttling, I can switch to an alternate device.
So, yeah, the internet has gotten really fat. A lot of it seems gratuitous...but, I'm guilty of it, too. If I need graphs or something, I reach for whatever library does everything I need and drop it in. Likewise, I start with a framework like Bootstrap, and some JavaScript stuff, and by the time all is said and done, I'm pulling a couple MB down just to draw the page. Even as browsers bring more stuff into core (making things we used to need libs for unnecessary) folks keep pushing forward and we keep throwing more libraries at the problem. And, well, that's probably necessary growing pains.
Maybe someday the bandwidth will catch up with the apps. I do wish more people building the web tested at slower speeds, though. Could probably save users on mobile networks a lot of time, even if we accept that dial-up just can't meaningfully participate in the modern web.