The last time I bought a phone on contract this is how I remember it, that was in 2010.
Today for unlimited data it's 24x£25 for sim only or £30 up front and 24x£62 for the 128GB iphone 13 mini, so £918 for the phone, which is available from Apple for £679.
{cut}
Seems sim only is once again the right choice but do I commit to a low-data lifestyle long term?
We've started heading that same direction but only in the last year or two.
It really distorted out phone market and it's why you saw so many Boomers complaining about kids and their brand new Iphones (which wasn't always the newest but you expect boomers to know that?)... Why would you not have the latest Iphone when it's effectively free on your plan?
I hope it brings back competition and diversity in the market.
As for low data... It takes dedication, a bit of cash and some self control, I rarely go much over a gig and I stream a lot of music, without that I could often get by with a few hundred megs.
First, stop using social media, stop using widgets and feeds. These DESTROY your data.
Obviously switch to wifi whenever possible (duh), beware, wifi uses more battery than cell data.
Stop watching/reading news on your phone or be very selective and use RSS feeds when possible. News video will also DESTROY your data and they like to sneak it into pages.
Set all of this stuff to have no data while running in background and/or only wifi. Including Google/Apple update.
If you use a weather app set it to only update every 30 minutes or when active.
If you use navigation, you can get 90% of the way there without navigation, wait until you get close to enable it. Do a quick check prior to leaving to get a general idea if needed.
Next run ad blocker DNS, run an adblocking browser, disable ALL of the garbage.
Use paid software when you can as opposed to free junk, and make sure it's actually paid without tracking.
Lastly, get ahold of Classyshark, it lets you see what has tracking and even strip the trackers from the app, though this can break apps.
If you stream music, this is a BIG one.
Ditch the provider's app, I.E. Iheartradio, Spotify, etc... Get an app that uses Shoutcast, without adds and find the raw audio streams. many places even offer higher and lower bandwidth streams, find the lowest that sounds decent. "But ____ doesn't offer a raw stream.." Sure it does, you just have to find it. VideoDownloadHelper, a browser plugin, specifically the Firefox version will let you capture a stream URL if played in the browser. Then you use an app that allows you to import stream URLS, I use XIAA Pro for this.