I normally have unlimited data (well several terabytes a month), however when travelling outside the eu this drops to something tiny (200mb). I turn off roaming in those cases, however turn it on when I need things like uber, Citymapper, etc.

In Citymapper I'd like it down download and cache maps when on wifi or when in the uk, but only do the minimum when roaming.

On laptops likewise, sometimes a connection is metered - not just tethered, but wifi on trains/planes, and even some home connections.

Determining when a device is on a metered connection or not is the tricky option, probably inpossible. Perhaps something device manufacturers could incorporate into network settings (a metered/non metreed flag on the connection)

> Determining when a device is on a metered connection or not is the tricky option, probably inpossible. Perhaps something device manufacturers could incorporate into network settings (a metered/non metreed flag on the connection)

I think that your second sentence contradicts your first. Making the determination automatically is, indeed, probably tricky; but making the determination by consulting a user-set flag is trivial. I'm too wedded to my Mac to commit to a Windows machine, but I love that Windows 10 has such settings (necessary to prevent it from auto-updating), and wish I could make my Mac do it.

Windows 10 does this, though it required users to explicitly mark what is metered.

Sure it can happen but I have never seen a "normal person" use tethering. My guess is that you could pretty much ignore it if you're making something for the general public.

This may be a regional thing, or your friends skew towards non-normal. Almost everyone I know understands tethering, and is comfortable using it. I'm in Sydney, Australia, where free wifi hotspots are perhaps less common than your part of the world, the people I know are not (to my knowledge) abnormal, mobile data services are typically fast, but costs are also quite high.

It is a source of some frustration that devices connected to a tether will assume 'wifi therefore unmetered' and do all the non-time-critical stuff (such as application updates) that you'd really rather that they do on a genuinely unmetered wifi access point (eg. home cable or ADSL) later on.

Same here. I've talked with multiple untechnical people who have managed to tether their iPads to their iPhones without problems.

Plug in your phone to your laptop and it works, no need to fiddle with wifi.

You're replying to someone talking about tethering their tablet onto their phone by wifi access point ... and suggesting they plug their phone into their computer.

I have experimented - in both Debian and Windows 7 - using plugged-in / USB connectivity, but a) it's a bit spotty, b) it means I need a cable connection and that's often not ideal when on the go, c) it doesn't (as noted) work with tablets, and d) it doesn't solve the underlying issue of slave devices thinking they have non-mobile(3g,4g,lte,etc) network connectivity and sucking down lots of data.

If you cripple your software just because the average user isn't a power user, there will be no way for average users to become power users because there's no advantage to doing so.

Reliance=revenues

Able=self-reliance

<Monop/Oligop> Corporation, Inc is not remotely interested in the latter.

I'd posit that the majority of road warrior types know how to tether.

In my extensive work travels over the last decade I was surprised how many do not for reasons other than ignorance. In the US, the ISPs explicitly & implicitly denying tethering usage made for a very confusing time late 2000's/early 2010's. When VZW(and the other big 3, I presume) gobbled up the smaller competitors they banned tethering, then charged extra for it(after or until the toothless FCC intervention?). Masking user agents, creating on-site APs out of old linux laptops+Mobile Data USB and the flaky USB data port enabled routers worked around these restrictions well enough. Have these policies been changed by the providers to where it is simple for average users w/out system tweaks or custom ROM features?