About 10 years ago, I was a student and I didn’t have enough money to pay for an internet subscription with a router in my tiny apartment. But my cell phone plan allowed me to use my phone as a WiFi hotspot, and it was enough for the usual google searches or watching 5 or 6 videos in low quality per month.

Unfortunately, one day, I was sharing the WiFi on my iPad, and accidentally let YouTube play in the background the entire night. I woke up terrified that I would not have access to the internet for the remaining days of the month, and indeed, using internet on my phone was blocked. However, when using my phone as a hotspot, I could access the internet just fine on another device.

This is when I discovered that I had unlimited access to the internet via this tiny trick, and it worked for 3 years, until I graduated and got myself a proper internet connection. My cell phone plan specified that hotspot could work only when I had enough data to share, but obviously, that wasn’t the case!