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Comment by kilroy123 | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off-topic.

I hate that internet is becoming more common on flights. One of my favorite things about flying is that it's a good chunk of time where you disconnect and don't worry about emails or messages.

Just sit back and watch a movie or listen to music. Or catch up on sleep.

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To be fair you can always choose to disconnect for a period of time.

I understand if your job expects you to be online when possible but if you have difficulty disconnecting without an external pressure to be online you could consider talking to a therapist to help you manage your reliance, especially if it's bothering you significantly.

could be about half of Americans could use therapy by that metric, as that's how many had unusued and thus forfeited time off in 2019[0]. Work culture is ill.

[0] https://www.ustravel.org/press/study-record-768-million-us-v...

> Could be about half of Americans could use therapy

I'd say that's a conservative estimate! Most people go for dental work etc., why ignore the mind in your health support regime?

Flights are/were a universally understood, no-questions-asked excuse for someone to be offline. That's the nice thing about them.

If the only reason you're allowed to be offline is because you're on a flight, i think there's much bigger problems that need sorting.

And just say the wifi was down if you don't want to connect; it seems to be down half the time I want to use it anyway.

What psychopathic workplaces is everyone at where they need to lie in order to be offline/not work on a flight??

If flying is one of the few times where you are allowed to be offline, it sounds like a rather 'meh work environment.

I would consider it an extremely toxic environment if I'm expected to be online 24/7. There's a reason our industry has rotating on call...

Yes, but now if you're not online during your flight it's because "you chose to" and you're a slacker.

Another dimension here is that it's a refuge from "the always on" society; if you were to step back and look at your life from a distance almost everyone would say "I need to disconnect more", but you often don't realize how dependent you are on that dopamine hit the connected internet provides until you're forced to disconnect. Then you see the peace and realize, "oh, I'm OK when I'm not attached to my phone".

But there are fewer and fewer opportunities to have that kind of realization these days.

Just claim the wifi was down on the plane. It's an easy lie that can't be refuted.

This sounds more like a work culture problem than a technology one. Why do you need to be perpetually online?

Who on earth is telling you that you are a slacker for not buying Wifi on your flights?

My inner voice! As with most people, I'm my own worst critic.

Hence the therapy recommendation. Learn to go easy on yourself.

To be fair, I fly about 30 times per year, and in the last ten years, I've found that the in-flight wifi actually worked approximately once.

I have the same flight stats and I have only had to ask for a refund once because it straight up didn’t work for most of the flight. Many airlines have very usable internet now, some even for free (jetBlue).

It depends a lot where you fly. In my experience, flying over Europe means the internet will almost certainly be spotty at best, whereas flying over the US means that it will probably work well enough to be useful.

I fly jetBlue a fair amount and the free Wi-Fi is a joke

It must have gone downhill since my last flight with them. I vividly remember getting something like 18 Mbps in a speed test and was shocked that they were giving it away.

This article from 2017 confirms that it was 15 Mbps at one time: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-airl...

It looks like they have since reduced the free tier to less than 1 Mbps and added a paid option that allows you to stream video.

It makes sense, if everyone streams then it'll create significant congestion once awareness rises due to people trying to use Netflix/Hulu/Disney+ etc. Better to offer people a free tier to allow folk to WhatsApp, FB, tweet, whatever and effectively manage the bulk of traffic through the paid tier.

I recently flew across country with jetblue and since I haven't flown in over 10 years I appreciated the wifi. However, I found I couldn't stream a music video on my phone without buffering. Fortunately if I turned off the video the music played fine. It was OK for reading hacker news and the like.

On the return flight it just didn't even work. Fortunately, I'd had newpipe download some content before we left.

I fly a lot too and that (assuming this is not a joke) seems abnormally low. I agree it is often not worth it though.

Reasons not to use in-flight wifi:

* It might be broken, but the credit card processing for some reason works fine.

* If you are on a short haul flight, it's going to be disconnected for takeoff/landing so you will get a solid 30m

* If you are on an international flight, it often stops work once you are over the ocean.

> * If you are on a short haul flight, it's going to be disconnected for takeoff/landing so you will get a solid 30m

I worked on inflight wifi for Qantas, where they share the highest trafficked route in the world - the 60 minute light between Sydney and Melbourne. It was a huge win for the project when we got clearance to enable wifi on the ground for takeoff.

No one is forcing you to connect, next time you fly. sit back, watch a movie, listen to music then sleep.

I see this take a lot, and I don't really understand it.

I'm sure you know that you always have the option to just not use the in-flight wifi. Is it that the availability of the wifi will tempt you to use it, therefore removing the feeling of disconnect?

For me it's more the _expectation_ that you can be reached that is the difference. Even if others might not really expect this from you, the possibility being there changes the situation.

I see, that makes sense. In that case, it becomes more of a discussion of boundaries and proper work-life expectations.

That is still your choice. On transatlantic flights a WIFI connection would be a godsend.

The Gogo 2Ku service that Delta offers on TATL flights works very well.

Not everyone has the privilege to be American or use American airlines. I sadly don't.

> Just sit back and try not to listen to the absolutely deafening roar of the turbofans.

I had once planned to sleep on a 10h flight. It did not go to plan.

A few years ago, I didn't know how to feel about someone Internet streaming a medical podcast from their laptop speakers for hours on a long flight. Impressed at the connectivity, but annoyed.

That's a strong "I'm sorry but do you have headphones? Respectfully I don't want to listen to this". Alternatively I bring earplugs to put in under my over-the-ear headphones, haha.

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