Usage-Based Internet Fees and the Future of the Web

I find it very ironic that the web is moving rapidly towards a graphics-heavy presentation style at the same time that internet providers are looking to change to usage-based fees.

Love infographics? I hate them. Most of them are so full of arrows and numbers, I feel I'm about *thisclose* to a seizure. Most importantly though, you can get the same information in voluminous text form in 1/100th of the file size.

Facebook's Timeline, as much as I like it (sue me :p), is very heavy on large photos (about 35kb each, in preview size). The mobile site doesn't load the big pics, so that is not a concern, but when my internet provider goes to usage-based fees, I will be more selective about viewing people's Timelines, and I won't be looking much at my own.

And YouTube? Netflix streaming? Get out. I don't know how that's even going to work. People will spend a lot less time watching videos when the meter is running and they're hearing that cha-ching! cha-ching!

Oh, and all those news links you click that take you, unsuspectingly, to a video story- those will be even more obnoxious when you're paying by the GB.

Last week, one of my clients wanted me to link a 4MB PDF for site visitors to view a pretty flyer for an event. The flyer contained all the same information that was already on that page in text form, in less than 1kb. Lovely, but that's a large percentage of data for someone like me who might view this thing on my phone, which has a 200MB monthly data allotment. We were able to reduce the size of the PDF to a much more reasonable 140kb, but still... A graphic with the same info on it? Why?

They wanted the link to say "Click here for the event flyer!" I wanted it to say, "Click here to view a 4MB flyer containing the same information you've just read." You know you would appreciate the warning.

Of course, I don't want to see the bland, text-heavy web of the modem days. It just seems there should be better image optimization and fewer graphics in places where text can be used.

Or the best option of all---- Just don't charge usage-based fees.