this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Seems a little bit like when your cell phone carrier disables the tethering feature on your phone and wants to charge you money to enable that. For me, infuriating to know that I'd paid to have hardware capable of being a wifi hotspot, then to be charged to use it. The "service" being provided amounts to first-we-degrade-the-thing-you-paid-for, then we-charge-you-ransom-to-get-it-back.
It's frustrating since by using your tethered connection you're using the same data that you already pay for. If there's a limit on how much data, why does it matter how you use for it?
Because - assuming you don't reach your data cap every month - you might be sharing your leftover data with somebody else who's getting it "for free" as far as They (the carrier/provider) are concerned. They can't control who/what devices connect to your hotspot, so They assume every tethered connection is siphoning data to a non-customer entity, potentially disincentivising "the leech" from subscribing to their own data plan.
If They can steer "the leech" towards becoming a paying customer, then they can harvest (more) data & device activity from both users AND they have more active data plans (paying account holders) to boast about to their real customers - the shareholders - than they would have otherwise.
It's pretty simple really, you just have to think like an executive who's fiduciarily beholden to lining the pockets of shareholders (as opposed to a business owner trying to provide a useful & mutually beneficial service to their customers). The latter do exist in the corporate world, but they are few and far between when you're a publicly traded S-corp like most (maybe all?) of the major providers. It's just the banality of societally-accepted evil at its finest (and yes; utter bullshit)