Some apps are much more data hungry than you might expect, and sadly this sometimes only becomes apparent when using precious mobile data. A case in point is provided by spacebuggles, a Redditor and Steam gamer who says they “burned through a month of mobile data in 5 minutes.” They weren’t downloading Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or Microsoft Flight Simulator, or anything so ambitious. Their questionable folly was simply “trying to send a sticker in Steam Chat.”
Comments by other Redditors regarding the mobile data overload frequently pointed the finger at animated .GIF data sizes – a popular media format on the Steam platform, along with animated and static .PNGs. These are seemingly the most popular underlying format for animated stickers and are hosted on Steam servers, not a local app cache, then streamed into the flow of the chat when chosen.
While initially some thought the data thieving culprit(s) may be autoplaying game showcase videos on Steam pages, this seems to have been ruled out, at least in spacebuggles’ case. The OP’s assertion about stickers seems to hold water, as does the wild and wanton way Steam store pages can also easily suck 20-30MB each when browsed.
With the crazy amount of data used by seemingly benign browsing, other Redditors mentioned how they were pleased that Steam Chat was farmed out of the main mobile app a couple of years back.
Exacerbating spacebuggles’ issues with Steam Chat wolfing down 700MB of data after a short spell of trying to secure a free sticker, we note that their mobile service provider contract only supplies 600MB of data per month. Spacebuggles seems to be a New Zealand resident on the 2degrees NZ$13 (US$7.77) monthly prepay plan. That deal also includes 100 minutes and unlimited texts for use in New Zealand and Australia.
Why unexpected mobile data usage can hurt
Clearly, depending on where you live in the world and the depth of your pockets, mobile data can be a precious and scarce commodity. According to the most recent study we found, the U.S. ranks 219 in the world’s average price per gigabyte of data. In 2023, cable.co.uk concluded U.S. citizens paid an average $6.00 per GB. New Zealand is ranked a smidgen better than the U.S. with an average $5.89 per GB at the time of the linked survey.
Many countries in the survey pay a tenth of the U.S. (or New Zealand) average, like the Philippines, the UK, and Singapore only shelling out about 60 U.S. cents per gigabyte.
Meanwhile, the best places for mobile data consumers include Israel (2 cents per GB), Italy (9 cents), and Fiji (9 cents) – the only nations at under 10 cents per GB.
At the other, unfortunate, end of the table you will see Saint Helena, the Falkland Islands, and Zimbabwe – who were paying over $40 per GB as recently as 2023.
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