Can we just do metered?

[marcoscaceres]

Following #82 and the Mozilla position, seems like the lowest hanging fruit would be to just gut the whole spec and just start with a metered connection flag. Just getting agreement on the tiny bit of the spec would probably go a long way towards meeting the original use cases.

[yoavweiss]

Can we focus this issue on how we can do metered? (and maybe rename appropriately?)

In mozilla/standards-positions#117 (comment) you showed that browsers can potentially use OS-level user settings to understand if a Wifi connection should be considered "metered" or not.

The other problem we need to solve is if a cellular connection is considered "expensive". I'm not aware of an OS-level setting on that front, but maybe browsers can ask users that question, or use data limit warnings users set as a proxy.

/cc @tarunban

[tomayac]

+1 to introducing a metered flag. As mozilla/standards-positions#117 (comment) shows, getting information about this state is possible on several operating systems, both mobile and desktop, and well noting that both cellular networks (e.g., a capped data plan) as well as Wi-Fi networks (e.g., a 250MB access ticket in a hotel) can be metered, plus taking into account the mobile hotspot use case.

[tomayac]

As suggested by @astearns in #91 (comment), wanted to point folks who only track the present issue #84 at #91 (comment), where I propose a reboot of the Network Information API.