There’s a massive difference between “terminally online” and “goes out of their way to avoid using any of the capabilities of the technology.”
If I’m paying for a 5G connection on a phone that’s more powerful than the computer I owned 5 years ago you’re damn right I want to watch my dumb video in 4K and stream my music lossless.
The biggest problem is modern phones gobble up data even if you're not doing much. All that background app activity and notifications aren't cheap - what do you think they're doing back there?
If you install GrapheneOS you'll notice your device battery nearly doubles, due purely to less network permissions and less background activity. I wouldn't be surprised if mobile data usage drops off, too.
Not downvoting, but any typical online activity during commute or while travelling will blow through 1GB. Music every day, or a video once in a while…
I also have WiFi at my usual hangs, but thus far this month I am on 15GB of my 50GB monthly plan. Sure I could pre download music or videos to watch, but it would be much more of a hassle. And some sites, like twitch, don’t really have an option to download.
If you can eat out of the dumpster for free we can argue that buying food at the grocery store is a waste of money too, right?
At some point extreme frugality like that just means you aren’t a customer at all. There is no app that could satisfy your desire to not waste data transfer.
They are low-cost plans. I pay $7 a month for a plan with 1GB data and unlimited text and calls and really appreciate having that option, since I'm on wifi 99% of the time.
I have a very similar phone plan (with some extra gift gigs I've received over the years).
I mostly pay to keep the number, use maps. Most other times I'm on wifi.
I get 120GB a month 'fair use' on my 20 euro a month plan here in Ireland. If I exceed that, my speed is slowed down, but internet continues to work. In other words, its not something I need to think about. These kinds of plans seem to be ubiquitous everywhere in the world now - with the exception of the USA, Canada and Australia / New Zealand.
