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> These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. […] Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

Are you saying using 1GB of data a day on a smartphone is normal for smartphone users? I have a 10GB plan not because I need it (looking at this year, 2GB would be more than sufficient) but because that’s about the lowest I can get nowadays.

Certainly if, as indicated, the intent is for these users to have a phone for essentials, not for watching YouTube or playing music, 3 GB, IMO, should be sufficient.

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My phone also reports as only having used a couple of gigabytes of mobile data each month but that's because most of the time I'm using it attached to wifi at home or work. The people being given free phone plans by the government probably don't have a home internet connection, that 3GB of data will be the only access they have outside of finding a library that's somehow still funded, or paying for a drink to use coffee shop wifi.

Maybe YouTube or listening to music aren't strictly essentials but they also don't seem like absurd luxuries that we should be arbitrarily denying to people in 2026 to save a few cents per user on what I assume is a set of bulk purchased SIMs.

> finding a library that's somehow still funded

Libraries just got an increase in funding in the US in the 2026 appropriations bills.

> Maybe YouTube or listening to music aren't strictly essentials but they also don't seem like absurd luxuries that we should be arbitrarily denying to people in 2026

No-one's arbitrarily denying things. It's about what should and shouldn't be given as free things that other people work to pay for.

Libraries haven't gotten much since 2009 except for huge costs for digital licensing.

Ebook publishers are scamming the libraries. I shit you not, but over something like 4 years an ebook can be 10x the cost.

It's just such a crazy idea to lend ebooks.

"It's UNFAIR!" is the anthem of whiny children. If these people would benefit from access to Youtube, and we can provide it to them trivially, then by all means, let them have it. If it upsets you when people are given things for free, that's really a "you problem."

They genuinely benefit from YouTube. I saw one guy watching a video on how to use a debit card since he'd never even held one before. They use them to figure out how to fill out paperwork at the SSA and state agencies etc.

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