Users say “I would never use 5G if I can use 4G”. Why is 5G so unpopular now?

Speaking of 5G, it is estimated that everyone knows it now. With the rapid development of 5G construction, many people have already used 5G mobile phones.

What’s interesting is that in actual use, many users can only use 4G network but never connect to 5G. What’s going on? Is 5G, which is faster than 4G, no longer popular among users?

Judging from the popularity of 5G, the three major operators have basically achieved continuous 5G network coverage in towns and villages across the country. Mobile phone manufacturers have also made the vast majority of mobile phones on the market 5G phones.

Of course, there are many 5G users now. According to the operating data released by the three major operators in May, the number of 5G package users of the three major operators has reached nearly 900 million. The total number of mobile network users of the three major operators has also reached 1.6 billion. This means that nearly half of domestic mobile phone users are now using 5G.

As a rule of thumb, since the network, terminals, and user scale have already reached popular standards, there should be quite a lot of users using 5G networks.

However, in daily life, except for a few users, most users often do not even feel the existence of 5G. Many users not only do not use 5G, but also do not know what 5G can do. Instead, they complain that 5G packages are too expensive. Therefore, as long as 4G can be used, 5G will never be used, and if 4G packages can be used, 5G packages will not be changed.

This situation has indeed surprised many people inside and outside the industry.

In fact, in my opinion, the reason why 5G is not popular now may be caused by the two problems of few applications and high fees.

Although there are nearly 900 million users using 5G, if you really ask these users what 5G can do and what the difference is between 5G and 4G, most users probably don’t know. The only thing they can say is that “the network speed is faster”.

This is actually the problem that there are currently few 5G applications, and 5G applications for individual users are basically invisible.

On the other hand, the biggest driving force behind the rapid popularization of 4G after its commercialization was precisely some "hot" applications in the field of personal applications.

For example, the "popular" applications in the fields of social networking, shopping, entertainment, and travel, such as WeChat, Alipay, and Meituan, which are now familiar to everyone and almost indispensable to everyone, were actually born in the 4G era.

These "hot" applications have not only become a booster for users to use 4G, but also an accelerator for promoting changes in the production and lifestyle of the entire society. It is under the catalysis of these "hot" applications that 4G has become something that everyone cannot do without, and has also expanded 4G to all aspects of society, economy, and life.

But what about 5G now? It has only some applications in the to B (government and enterprise market) for vertical industries, and has achieved a lot of commercial results, but it is still far from the general public.

As a result, due to the lack of "popular" applications, even though the 5G network signal coverage is quite wide and there are many 5G users, the actual application scenarios of 5G are actually relatively narrow.

It is precisely because 5G’s presence and experience are too low among users that many consumers feel that the 5G network is not much better than the 4G network.

It would be fine if it wasn’t easy to use, but the 5G charges are much more expensive than 4G.

In the middle and late stages of the 4G era, due to the mature network construction, the large number of users, and the price competition among the three major operators in order to attract users, the prices of 4G packages on the market have been reduced to the point of "cabbage price". At the same time, there are various "extremely cheap" packages with low monthly fees, high directional traffic, even directional free traffic, unlimited tariffs, etc. This makes the majority of users very happy.

But the current 5G charges are much more expensive than the already “extremely cheap” 4G charges.

Even including the newly released radio and television, the 5G packages launched by the four major operators currently start at 100 yuan per month. The 5G traffic included in the package is not very large, and there are very few preferential offers such as directional large traffic and directional free traffic for 5G.

At present, the general public can only experience 5G network speed in a few scenarios such as downloading large files, videos, and applications. However, due to the high fees and traffic prices, users have to use either 4G or WiFi.

Compared with 4G, the higher tariffs and traffic fees have, to a certain extent, limited users' interest in using 5G.

From the users' point of view, 5G, which is useless and expensive, is naturally not "attractive" and users can choose not to use it.

Now that 5G has become available, the key to whether 5G will be fully popularized is whether users will like it and want to use it. The full popularization of 5G also requires the joint efforts of the entire industry chain to achieve.

So, do you have a 5G phone now? How often do you use 5G networks?