Why do smartphones have so little memory?

Can we preload an offline version of Wikipedia onto the internal memory of smartphones in the developing world?

• It would cost nothing, and advance the spread of knowledge by a generation in only months.

• Answer:

  Yes, it is a great idea and can definitely be considered by the phone companies. But, there is a small problem. As you would agree, the emphasis in developing countries is to keep the phone cost as low as possible. Unfortunately, one of the most expensive components of a smartphone is its internal memory: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Whats-the-most-expensive-smartphone-component-Check-your-guess-here_id30020 In this expensive internal memory, if you want to preload offline version of Wikipedia, you would need more than 10 GB of space just for the text alone (excluding pictures, audio & video) https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesDatabaseSize.htm That drastically increases the cost of the phone. Also, another thing to consider is that Wikipedia is always evolving & being revised by peers. Suppose a phone company preloads 10 GB of Wikipedia in October 2014, most of the articles (especially related to current affairs) would be outdated by November 2014 itself. Also, since anybody can edit wiki, at any given point of time, a significant portion of wiki can be biased or incomplete or even wrong, which usually gets corrected over time by peers and by the time these pages are fixed, other pages would have become biased and so on. So, by preloading a static version of Wiki, you would actually be doing a great injustice to the students who might use it as a reference for the next few years without checking the updated pages. To summarize, we have 2 problems: 1) Phone memory is expensive and it is not a good idea to dedicate 10 GB just for Wiki which would be used only by 1% of the population once in a while. i.e For 99% of the users, that 10 GB of Wiki data on expensive memory would be of no use and hence not a good idea to offer them this expensive "feature". 2) Wiki is constantly revised and hence is not a good idea to save a certain version and use it as reference for next few years. One simple method to solve both the problems is to have carrier networks allowing users to access Wikipedia for free. i.e Even without a data plan, users should be able to access only Wikipedia (and for rest of the internet, the user can sign up a monthly data plan if he wishes to).  This initiative can either be from the carrier or the Govt. i.e The Govt from developing countries can request carriers operating in their countries to allow smartphone users to access Wiki for free so that at any point of time, irrespective of where the user is, as long as he has mobile signal, he should be able to access Wiki as well.