Where I live,Ontario Canada, mobile data is still somewhat expensive (especially if you exceed your cap, per megabyte) so you tend to use it judiciously. On a shared family plan, I didn't know that it was all used up mid month. I was at a house with an unworkable ADSL connection it was barely fluid enough for the kid to play his Call of Duty game. I had to download about 600 Mb of HP shitware, graphics drivers etc. So I fucking "hotspot" tethered. I'm soon getting push notifications that I'm over the bandwidth limit. I spent a lot of time screwing around at that house and only billed $100. The bandwidth overage cost me $82. That was probably 2005'ish I reckon. Bandwidth plans are larger than that now, but it's still somewhat prohibitive.
I think we have a lot more (still shared data) on "Fido" now, but I'd have to check. I'm not the one that signed us up for that one, but good deal. I still only use it in emergencies (e.g. I need information or I have to attend to something where there's no wifi). I keep it turned off until I need it, partly because I don't want SMS attachments downloading.