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Comment by mattkrea | Hacker News Reader

If you are tethering it is on you to monitor your usage

I disagree, but playing along with that, how would you recommend users doing this? How do you monitor your usage while tethering? Have you ever caught something?

Users shouldn't have to worry about unattended OS downloads like this one happening without their permission or awareness.

Why wasn't it untethered after the skype call?

Or, you know, just use skype on your phone

The real question is, why did it only try to update and download Sierra then?

This is one of the reasons I don't leave any downloads to automatic.

Skype mobile client wasn't working.

During the Skype call I had shitty QOS too, and yes, the full download had completed by the time I'd finished the meeting, because the MacBook was closed immediately after.

I will turn off automatic download now, obviously, but I honestly believe that a OS upgrade isn't acceptable as a background download.

Simply because it's not an automatically applied update.

> but I honestly believe that a OS upgrade isn't acceptable as a background download.

Yeah, I totally agree. You might not even want it

Seems the only solution is to turn off all background downloads, and just kick them manually.

On reflection, I don't think I'm actually gaining that much (or anything at all) by letting them run automatically anyway. It's a false convenience.

Install iStat menus, watch the download bandwidth gauge, look at per process bandwidth in the drop down when it is unexpectedly high.

A computer without a network bandwidth display is like a car without a speedometer. I wish all OSes had this, would cut down on people's mystery wifi complaints.

A bunch of (ostensibly "meaningless" to non-techie) gauges would be too confusing for most people.

Apple could do more in this case, or at least inform users of this risk when they are tethered. Take a look at TripMode to prevent it from happening again. I've relied on it a handful of times to limit background data transfer.

I feel like most software isn't designed with the most conservative policies in mind when it comes to data usage (Facebook does a great job though, I'll admit).

Part of the reason might be that software engineers at companies like Microsoft and Google have unlimited data as a perk with their employees' personal cell phones (even still on Verizon today when a regular Joe cannot even get unlimited data anymore).

After leaving BigCo, I never upgraded my phone again because of the perk.

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