...that said, Pokémon Go could sure use a lot more caching. It seems that (didn't confirm with a packet sniffer, but latency says it all), for example, it redownloads all Pokéstop data whenever you visit it. That's IMO utterly ridiculous - a Pokéstop is pretty much a permanent fixture (an ex-Ingress portal), it doesn't change, and the user itself is expected to mostly stay in the same geographical area. I don't see any good reason not to cache at least the visual stuff.
Which brings me to the general problem of the hipstery approach to development - download and redownload everything from Internet ad infinitum, as if everyone had broadband and electricity was free.
Most of the people playing Pokemon have probably never heard of Ingress.
I agree that it could use a lot more caching, though!
I am comparing it to Facebook because that is what the linked document in question does.
I suspect you are being overly pedantic as a way to avoid my core point, which is that this application doesn't consume much/any more data per hour than most other activities people use a smart phone for. Even the linked document shows that.
First, there are not that many games of this type, but the user will see this as a "game". Most games don't use any bandwidth, and network games are often fairly lightweight in bandwidth, while some use a lot more. I doubt most games use anywhere close to the bandwidth used by modern bloated websites. If this game is different from the usual expectations of a game, it should include a warning and estimation of it's bandwidth usage.
> browsing facebook mobile
Why are you comparing playing a game to browsing a website? These are entirely unrelated activities with different expectations.