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Comment by userinanother | Hacker News Reader

Does everyone really need that much bandwidth though? Usally 20mbps is enough for most things. 50 is plenty and after that it’s mostly bragging rights.

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2023: “Does everyone really need 100Mbps?”

2003: “Does everyone really need 5Mbps?”

1994: “Does everyone really need 28.8Kbps?”

1967: “Does ARPAnet really need 2.4Kbps?”

You clearly don't play video games. Waiting on downloads in the mid 10s of GB is common.

- Multiple people videoconferencing at once, as was very common in a lot of households during COVID lockdown.

- Gaming.

- Other large downloads/uploads for WFH purposes.

- High-bitrate 4k UHD streaming.

All nice to haves but do we really need to build out all the infrastructure for that if most people don’t need that speed and definitely can’t convert that convenience into economic value. This is especially now that most companies are forcing everyone back and the government is pretending covid is no longer a thing

I buy physical media for the most part because it retains resale value. But also the inconvenience of someone downloading for an extra hour or two shouldn’t drive us to build billions in infrastructure

25 Mbps is enough for one person so 100 Mbps is reasonable for a household.

It's the difference between playing the game you just bought in 20 mins or having to leave your PC on until the next day.

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