Try using dial up! My sister lives in the boonies and it's either that or satellite Dish. Gmail on dial up is a pig. Every page i tried to go to was awful. Web pages have gotten so bloated with auto playing ads and video that it's unusable on a slow connection.
Let's face it. The bigger the pipe everyone has, the more crap sites are going to load onto their pages to fatten them up. VZW+ATT know this. They know that sites are getting heavier. They have the records and metrics of what their users do. They also know that if they keep the baseline low enough, it'll make their more practical/usable packages seam like a deal!