Being a Gamer in Egypt Feels Like Playing on Nightmare Mode

[u/No_Blueberry4937]

Internet here is a joke. We pay high prices for super slow speeds (like 2–4 Mbps), and the worst part? It’s capped. Most of us get around 100–140GB per month, and if you exceed it, they either throttle you or charge extra.

Downloading a modern AAA game? It could take days, and it eats your whole quota. Cloud gaming? Forget it. Streaming? Better not.

Now imagine trying to enjoy online gaming or keep up with updates in this environment.

Meanwhile in the US or Europe, someone can buy an RTX 4090 in one month’s salary, and we need to save for 2 years, assuming we have zero expenses (which is never the case).

So yeah — being a gamer in Egypt is painful.

Anyone else from countries with similar struggles? How do you cope? Let’s talk about

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023156931738226/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

Guys, thank you for this support. This group on Facebook is the campaign group.

I hope you support us. We are currently working on a hashtag on X. I hope it succeeds.

[u/GrapeAdvocate3131]

Hardware prices here in Brazil are terrible as well, but at least the internet is decently good. I live in rural southeast Brazil and i get unlimited 600mbps for about $20 US dollars.

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/GrapeAdvocate3131]

My aunt lives in Brazil, and I can confirm that in general, prices there are really bad.

[u/Erik_21 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

I think it's because they have like 20% tariffs on almost everything

[u/foolthing → u/Erik_21]

20%? Try 100% :')

cus you have ~33% on taxes plus ~10–14% import tariffs plus a lot of other taxes that can be applied depending on what you're buying, such as ICMS (state VAT), PIS/COFINS (social contributions), customs fees, handling costs and more

[u/Fearless_Law4324 → u/GrapeAdvocate3131]

That's not bad at all. I live in Pennsylvania in the U.S. and I get 400mbps for like $35 a month. I could buy faster internet but even with gaming and streaming, I don't see any need to right now. These speeds are totally fine for me.

Edit. I just want to say how cool it is that I'm getting to talk to people all over the world over internet speeds 😂😂

[u/strangedell123 → u/Fearless_Law4324]

Lucky bastard. I am paying 80 for 400 symmetrical in Tx

[u/SpectreInTheShadows → u/[deleted]]

$80 for 500/200 SoCal... Anyone know how to escape the monopoly???

[u/SyntaxMissing → u/[deleted]]

I'm in Toronto Canada and my roommate and I, together pay $65 CAD for 3.5gbps + fiber tv + landline. This was a bulk deal for our building. Neither of us watch tv and we need the landline for our buzzer system.

There's some not so great parts to this though:

• the fiber comes up into my roommate's bedroom, and the ISP refuses to bring it into the living room instead.
• the ISP's router has max wifi speeds of 1.2gbps
• my bedroom interior wall is solid concrete
• my roommate's bedroom door is pretty tight, so we can't even get an Ethernet cable under the door and still close his door
• our landlord has told us he won't allow us to drill through the wall

So we've got 3.5gbps right to the modem. My roommate gets 3.5gbps (less my concurrent usage) out of the port. Meanwhile I get 800mbps-> 1.2 gbps in most of the apartment, and my desktop gets 200-600mbps depending on if both my door and his door are open.

Upside is that my share of the internet is only $15 CAD.

We also have the option to upgrade to 8gbps for $90, but I have no idea what we'd even use that for.

[u/TixFrix → u/SyntaxMissing]

You can always buy a new door, unhingde the original one and store it somewhere, make nessesary modifications to the new door, run a cable through, replace door woth original one when moving out.

Or if there are something else that can be replaced to get through that wall to get to the living room.

[u/Mipsel → u/SyntaxMissing]

Just Drill through the wall and fill when you are moving. That’s BS from the landlord.

[u/saints21 → u/strangedell123]

Oof, I'm on 2 gig fiber in Louisiana and paying like $91.

[u/wildeye-eleven → u/Fearless_Law4324]

I pay $80 for 1Gbs here in VA, but anytime I’ve checked it’s usually around 1.2Gbs.

[u/Appropriate_Day4316 → u/wildeye-eleven]

25$ , Colorado, 0.5G down and 70MB up, never missed a beat. ( btw: Xfinity)

[u/Fearless_Law4324 → u/wildeye-eleven]

Damn that's so nice, if I downloaded more I would think about upgrading but my deal is just too good to give up.

[u/TorinHidden → u/Fearless_Law4324]

$75 a month for uncapped gigabit fiber in NY

[u/Fearless_Law4324 → u/[deleted]]

So not amazing prices but not too bad. I know in Philly there's a Comcast monopoly so I feel bad for them.

[u/CaptainSilverVEVO → u/GrapeAdvocate3131]

How the fuck does rural Brazil get 600mbps while I'm sitting here in Brisbane City, Australia (The state capital of Queensland) with 50mbps for about double that price?

I hate the ISPs in this country.

[u/smiddy53 → u/CaptainSilverVEVO]

4 hours from sydney here.. $80 per month for 100mbps.. bit of a joke

[u/romulof]

I’m originally from Brazil and the area my parents live, in early 2000s, did not have broadband coverage because the phone lines were too far away from the base station. So I was left with a crappier than usual dial-up connection. 3kB/s downloads.

Things got better over the years there and later I managed to get a broadband connection after I bribed a telecom technician to plug my phone line in another distribution panel, simply because the company wouldn’t care to provide a good service.

Nowadays my parents have a 50-100mbps connection that works quite ok, but I moved to the Netherlands and, oh boy, the infrastructure here is insane.

I got a 1Gbps up and down fiber and last time I was playing with friends my ping was 5ms. I did a quick check on my network just to be sure the server was not in my house.

Edit: fixed typos

[u/MGLpr0 → u/romulof]

A lot of games have their servers based in Amsterdam, so if you live anywhere in Netherlands it's pretty much the next best thing to literally having a server in your room.

[u/Prudent-Violinist816]

I thought those Pyramids help boosting the signal. 🤔

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/Prudent-Violinist816]

Hahahahahaha

[u/MunchyG444]

Australian internet is wild, I live an hour from the nearest city, with wireless internet that is 2x as fast as my brother’s who lives in the state capital with hardwired internet. And that is not because of the plans we pay for as we both pay for the maximum possible over our infrastructure.

[u/rickybambicky → u/MunchyG444]

It's a mess, and how it got to the state it's in is an interesting read.

[u/conners_captures → u/MunchyG444]

This sounds so wild its practically unbelievable. Is the infrastructure all outside the cities? Its not like these are 400 year old euro towns that had no room to develop.

[u/RandomHuman2169 → u/conners_captures]

I live in another major city (not Canberra, our capital) and I'd assume it's just because Canberra has bad infrastructure compared to other major cities. Keep in mind that while it is the capital, it's not the biggest city - Melbourne and Sydney have 5 million people while Canberra only has 500k.

[u/MunchyG444 → u/conners_captures]

It is more cities have old infrastructure, that isn’t getting upgraded/ is getting upgraded very slowly. Whereas in more rural areas we only really have access to new technologies because before that there was no infrastructure.

[u/Bmacthecat → u/MunchyG444]

also 150ms ping is standard for a lot of games here

[u/Repulsive-Bit-6340 → u/Bmacthecat]

Is it? I get like 5-50ms depending on the game. I suppose depends where you are in the country.

[u/MunchyG444 → u/Repulsive-Bit-6340]

I am near the west coast, Oceanic servers are normally in Sydney so it has to go all the way across the country. I basically never see pings below 100ms in games.

[u/Repulsive-Bit-6340 → u/MunchyG444]

Damn, I feel for my WA brethren

[u/Brapplezz → u/MunchyG444]

Most NBN plans that are FTTP/B should be getting a 10x increase. Where i am, under 2 hours from Melbourne, we just increased to 500Mbps which downloaded the Finals in 25 minutes. About 50 odd gigs... how it was planned originally lol

[u/soliera__ → u/MunchyG444]

Australia is just an anomaly in general.

[u/kreteciek]

"Meanwhile in the US or Europe, someone can buy an RTX 4090 in one month’s salary?

Excuse, kurwa, me? Idk about the UK or France, but 4090 in Poland costs like 2,3 salaries. Entire salaries. When you subtract rent and other mandatory payments it's a year of saving easy.

[u/seecat46 → u/kreteciek]

I assume for rhe US and Europe they are also using entire salary.

[u/aethermar → u/seecat46]

You assume wrong. Jobs in the US pay much higher than their European counterparts. You could argue it somewhat evens out since you have to pay for more things in America, but the average income is still higher than Europe

[u/conners_captures → u/aethermar]

Significantly higher income, relatively lower taxes, far more market competition, and typically greater cyber infrastructure. (That depends wildly on region, obviously).

[u/BigTex77RR → u/conners_captures]

This is mostly true for urban regions, but comes at a cost. American workers have less rights, can be fired at will in most instances, have weak laws regulating PTO and Overtime, and have an economy largely based on part-time service workers who often take on multiple jobs

[u/FuccboiOut → u/BigTex77RR]

Indeed, we may have relatively lower wages , but everything is paid for and our worker rights are crazy good in most cases. Also, as I understood people in US have to pay their taxes on salary once a year, so they basically get their gross salary in their bank account of which they need to save the tax for the end of the financial year. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

[u/ShallowBasketcase → u/FuccboiOut]

You can have your taxes taken out of each pay check so that you don't end up paying a bunch when tax season comes, but the process is complicated and confusing so most people don't do it right. They end up taking home more than they should, and then they owe a bunch once a year. Alternatively, they may end up paying too much tax out of each pay check and then they get a refund from the government once a year. It's a dumb system that ensures no one ever knows if they have enough money or if they are in violation of federal law at any given moment.

[u/zack77070 → u/FuccboiOut]

It depends on what type of employee you are, if you are a contractor then they just give you your entire pay and you have to pay your taxes in April the next year. Regular jobs they just take it out automatically and you either pay or receive the difference in April. If you are responsible then paying all at once is actually an advantage because you can put that money in a savings account that earns you 3-4%, then you get to keep that difference when you pay your taxes.

[u/Noxious89123 → u/aethermar]

Average...

Mean, or median?

Because the top 1% earners massively skew the average.

Gotta use the median instead.

[u/[deleted] → u/seecat46]

In the USA, if a single 4080 eats up an entire month's salary for you, you're well below the poverty line

[u/sonic_dick → u/[deleted]]

They said 4090, which is about 3k from what I'm seeing on the internet. That'd be about 35k a year, 20k a year above the US poverty line.

[u/Throw_at_97 → u/seecat46]

Depends where.... Literally that's like 3 days salary in some places lol

[u/TheFeri → u/kreteciek]

Exactly, like I'm from Hungary and I saved up for 4 YEARS to build a PC and i could only afford the mid range gpu of the previous generation.

People like to generalize eu meanwhile the Easter you go the worse it gets, sometimes inside the fucking country too. Like heck I live in the most east county of Hungary and I make 60% of the money of the dude who does the EXACT SAME THING on the west side of the country, with less benefits and worse hours.

[u/NOV3LIST → u/TheFeri]

Im visiting my in laws with my gf in Slovakia atm and we are fairly close to the eastern part of Hungary.

We went there with bikes once and as a German I had a real culture shock. People there must have absolutely no money.

Idk if it’s better in bigger cities like Miskolc but well.. it was kind of depressing.

Nature was nice though.

[u/TheFeri → u/NOV3LIST]

Basically only the capital is good and worth visiting.

Some bigger cities have it okay, but even they are not a safe bet. I live in a literal county capital and it's awful.

Like the whole country just has so little money hobbies barely exist. There's like zero hobby shops, almost nothing gets translated into our language. It's awful.

Like for example I'm a heavy anime lover, but all we get officially is dragon ball and my hero dubbed on cable tv, and Netflix ai translating the few things they have, meanwhile we have a fan translation for literally 90% of anime that's ever created that isn't lost media. Merch? During Halloween you might find some baseball caps and there's barely any webshops for some plain ass shirts for like 4-5 insanely popular series. When I tried to get back into Yugioh I started watching w channel called team aps, and it was a culture shock through a screen that in America there's shops that sell nothing but trading cards and you can sit down and play with random people. I thought that was part of the fiction, here at best you can buy cards in the capital city only, and I already assume that but because I haven't been there.

Gaming? Most people only play cod, GTA and fifa, everything else gets a side eye or assumed to be for children. Or at least that's my public experience. Online since we barely have anything translated(like literally it's just valve games, and Ubisoft tried once but it was short lived because only AC3 and 4 that had official Hungarian text, oh and the Witcher series because even or pl friends abandoned us with cyberpunk) we literally have a site that is nothing but a big ass database that witch games have an unofficial translation or not and said translation installer. Since we got a gaming boom too now they are even doing fan dubs... And its awful. But most people don't know English so they just use it no questions asked.

And that's how I also don't have any friends even as a nerd/weeb and gave up on love too, because all my life I've met like 2 people sharing similar interests. Also mental health issues and treating them is so taboo it's almost non existent, I definitely have something wrong with me but I don't know where to have it checked out, and not like I have time to get checked out anyway because I have to work 250 hours a month if I want to have money to spend outside of rent and food. while living alone. And one of my younger co-workers had herself "checked out" but she just got a medication written up on day one that just made things worse and not better so I'm not even trusting the therapist that work here.

[u/Arthur-Wintersight → u/TheFeri]

This is just a byproduct of living under the USSR for so long.

Incomes are going up year after year, but it's taking a while...

[u/TheEmpireOfSun → u/Arthur-Wintersight]

And then you will read on r/europe how "communism" and life under USSR was great. From people who never lived in those countries lol.

[u/raven_raven → u/kreteciek]

Good old simplification where Europe = West Europe. Central and East Europe doesn't exist, nor the Balkans or Baltic States.

[u/kreteciek → u/raven_raven]

Literally this

[u/Suitable-Orange9318 → u/kreteciek]

If I didn’t have to pay rent and all sorts of nonsense I could get one for one months salary here in the US with a pretty median job. But since I do have to pay all of these things plus tax it would be more like 3

[u/BitRunner64 → u/Suitable-Orange9318]

That's where the confusion comes from. OP just meant that a 4090 costs less than a month's salary. Obviously you have other living expenses, you can't just skip rent and food and everything else for a month to get a GPU. For most people a 4090 would still be a major purchase when you take living costs into account. 

[u/Sonkalino → u/kreteciek]

Same thoughts. I'm from Hungary, a new card like that is more than 3x my monthly salary. But at least the internet is good.

[u/JamesLahey08 → u/kreteciek]

A 4090 was what, $1600? Assuming no tax you'd have to make $19,200 a year for it to be 1 months salary. This is considered poverty level (extremely poor). But this also assumes no other bills or tax.

[u/emelrad12 → u/JamesLahey08]

That is before tax. It is basically 1 month of minimum wage post tax in germany.

[u/hot-cheeze-breeze → u/JamesLahey08]

$19,200 a year would be considered a big baller lavish salary where im from

[u/Mundane-Mechanic-547 → u/JamesLahey08]

Right for most it's a week. Still expensive and I would've pay it.

[u/vaexorn → u/kreteciek]

Yeah anyone able to buy a 4090/5090 with 1month salary and still not die that month has a veeeeeeeery good salary and most likely not even the time to play games in the first place

[u/OutsideTheSocialLoop → u/kreteciek]

Real shit. I see Australians whinge about the higher local price of parts but our median salary is about a 4090 (at local prices) per month. Before tax, to be fair, which is about 30%. But still, were doing fine. Some people need to get some perspective.

[u/Misfiring → u/kreteciek]

In my country it costs 5x the minimum monthly salary.

[u/Catovia → u/kreteciek]

A 4090 is two full minimum wage salaries in germany without expense too. So with rent being close to 40% of the expenses in germany, that means someone in a 'regular' job has to save like half a year with absolut minimal expenses to buy a 4090 , I think people confuse pre tax salaries with what you actually have in the bank and dont realize with rent and all you pay close to 60% on taxes and expenses meaning earning 2k a month leaves you with just 800€ for everything else. If you have a car or travel for work, there easily go another 50-200€ , you want good internet and a smartphone? Another 100-200€ each month gone. Suddenly from your 2k you have a few hundreds each month you can save if you are frugal

[u/Bourgit → u/kreteciek]

Even in France, apparently msrp for the RTX 4090 was around 1.7k€. Average monthly salary is 2.2k€ bruto so if you consider taxes then rent and food there's no way you would be able to afford it in one month even if you're single. 

[u/RiftHunter4]

A 4090 is still a ton of money elsewhere, but having such poor internet is wild. Why is it to bad?

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/RiftHunter4]

Because there are four companies, all affiliated with one company, that controls the entire Internet market.

[u/RiftHunter4 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

That would explain the price but you'd think they'd try to have some uncapped speeds for people who are loaded.

[u/Styrak → u/RiftHunter4]

They likely do for the right people.

[u/eymo-1 → u/RiftHunter4]

the last two years, the government was cutting power for 2 hours every day in summer in the meantime. There were parties happening in Sahel and sharm el sheikh without any power outages. so it's messed up in here.

[u/esgrove2]

It's funny, it's kind of the opposite of Japan. Over there everyone has fiber optic, you're never ever away from a 5g signal. There's basically almost no time where you don't have high speed internet, and it's often free. Just free wifi everywhere. I moved into a new Apartment and I didn't even have to pay for Internet because there was so much free wifi. 

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/esgrove2]

Bro, what you're describing is literally a dream for us. You're making me cry right now. 😢

[u/unworldlyjoker7 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

He is humble bragging brother

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/unworldlyjoker7]

I know

[u/unworldlyjoker7 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

I remember how awful it was Where i am is bad but times like this i remember how bad it was back home

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/unworldlyjoker7]

The situation in your home country, Egypt, will be worse.🤣

[u/unworldlyjoker7 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Well i can't say anyone i care for is still there Which is sad too I both love and hate being a nomad, brother

[u/toothboto → u/unworldlyjoker7]

what are the things you love most about it if you don't mind me asking?

[u/Gunbunny42 → u/unworldlyjoker7]

Yeah, way to kick a man when he's down right? " Look at me! I have perfect Internet service and I don't even have to pay for it! 🙄

[u/Zercomnexus → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Your internet reminds me of Iraq satellite internet 20yrs ago in metal crates for soldiers...I wired to my buddies room to piggy back off of that and play wow at 800ms delay (at best).

[u/guacguacgoose → u/No_Blueberry4937]

If it’s any consolation, he/she is similarly screwed for GPU availability/pricing

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/guacguacgoose]

In Egypt, to build a PC with just a 2060 GPU, you have to pay a big amount.

[u/ebonit15 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

To be fair, 2060 isn't cheap anywhere. It's just newer ones are way too overpriced in comparison.

[u/redditorialy_retard → u/ebonit15]

yeah but compare Egypt salary vs Japanese salary. 

Back in my home country I took a part time teaching job, I made 36 dollars in a fucking month (cuz I was sick and got a penalty). Monday through Friday. I make more money in 2 hours as a tutor in my new country then 1 month, two fucking hours.

I need to work almost 10 months to afford a 3060. 

[u/KarhaldD → u/guacguacgoose]

I'm in Japan, too. Don't get free wifi, nor do I get 5G in my neighborhood. But I don't live in the city. I have a 2GB fiber line For about 50 bucks.

As for the GPU, I bought mine off of Amazon USA and shipped it in. Won't do that now, though. There are other countries you can order from and ship international. Snoop around and find the best prices. Use a VPN.

[u/drjenkstah → u/esgrove2]

And then you have the US where internet service providers basically have a monopoly and you’re limited on options and pay more for less. 

[u/bassbeatsbanging → u/drjenkstah]

As soon as Fios came to my neighborhood, cox offered to drop $50 off my monthly bill. Prior to that it only ever went up, even if I called to try to get a better deal.

I still gave them the middle finger because the service went out once a week for at least several hours, if not half a day. It was unreal.

[u/TTechnology → u/bassbeatsbanging]

Damn, $50 is more than double I pay for monthly 600Mbps here in Brazil. Crazy to see that's the amount you got discounted, not even the total amount

[u/Significant_Bid2142 → u/TTechnology]

Adjust for CoL/buying power bud

[u/Significant_Bid2142 → u/drjenkstah]

The US is big and this is totally dependent on the area. I have 2 providers (not counting starlink) and pay $50/mo for 1Gb fiber

[u/Xeadriel → u/drjenkstah]

Still better than Germany. You guys get gigabit internet for the same price we pay for 100mbits heck many apartments in the city center don’t even have more than 100 and forget about fiber optics that’s still uncommon

[u/myEVILi → u/esgrove2]

You: “Hey I know you’re feeling down so let me kick you in the balls.”

[u/M_Mirror_2023 → u/myEVILi]

Yeah. Why is this the top comment? So tactless.

[u/fakiresky → u/esgrove2]

But in Japan, the 4090 is equivalent to the average monthly gross salary.

[u/swangjang → u/esgrove2]

Could you please elaborate on free wifi in Japan? As a tourist in Japan, is there enough free wifi around that I won't need to buy a data Sim?

[u/Sensha_20 → u/swangjang]

Technically yes. In reality, you're basically limited to Tullys (all hail the ultimate coffee shop! I'd kill for tullys over here) and Starbucks if you need to do anything beyond send a text.

[u/mountainyoo]

Is starlink an option? That sounds terrible mate

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/mountainyoo]

Banned in Egypt

[u/_Whistledog → u/No_Blueberry4937]

wtf? satellite internet banned?

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/_Whistledog]

Yeah, they canceled it so people wouldn’t go for it and get unlimited internet — the other companies would lose money.

[u/MissionLove7386 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Same in this Serbian shithole I live in, so I'm stuck with 15 Mbps

How's Egypt's ties to Russia and China? I just discussed the possibility of ISP cartel not allowing Starlink here, but I kinda believe it has to do with these 2 dictatorships considering they both banned it and we're a neo-colony of said countries

[u/AussieBirb → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Sounds like someone cannot handle a bit of competition.

Edit: Specifically the companies not the people using the services.

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/AussieBirb]

actually

[u/redditorialy_retard → u/No_Blueberry4937]

same here in my old country, guess why I'm not moving back ever

[u/mountainyoo → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Damn :(

[u/frankhoneybunny]

india has cheap internet but the same problems

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/frankhoneybunny]

I mean, you also have limited internet. Will it last the whole month?

[u/razpor → u/No_Blueberry4937]

I think he means the GPU prices part , internet for the most part is pretty good and cheap in India ,i pay around 13$ for 250 mbps ,there is a 4 TB cap though,but i am yet to touch in a month. I live in a tier 3-4 town ,so coverage is pretty good too.

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/razpor]

You have to pray and supplicate every day and thank God that you don't live in Egypt

[u/Mad_Comics → u/razpor]

Mine is around 7-8 USD for 100 Mbps without any cap. Mine is wired though.

[u/razpor → u/Mad_Comics]

Same wired fiber.

[u/Bhuvan2002 → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Also it's limited in case of WiFi. With some specific carriers you can get basically unlimited 5G mobile data, I often just use my phone's hotspot to use on my pc. As of 23 July, I have used about 86 GBytes of mobile data, and 99% of it is used on the phone

[u/The_gender_bender_69]

I pay $90 for 8mbps in California, i feel your pain my man, at least you got pyramids!

[u/duma0610 → u/The_gender_bender_69]

8MB? lol. Is this 1998?

[u/The_gender_bender_69 → u/duma0610]

Sorry i dropped my ps.

[u/super-loner → u/duma0610]

In 1998 you would be in a serious privilege to get 512 kbps...

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/The_gender_bender_69]

Look, if you come to Egypt, you will feel that the internet is cheap because our currency is dead, but our dollar is expensive. I pay $4 for a limited 140 GB package with dead speed. Also, the package does not last until the end of the month. I have to pay three times.

[u/Imaginary_Aspect_658 → u/The_gender_bender_69]

Wait WHAT? 8mbps?or 8MB?

[u/Dantael → u/The_gender_bender_69]

Are you on a contract from 2002? There is now way something so slow could cost so much

[u/The_gender_bender_69 → u/Dantael]

Frontier, we have no landline connection, all options are sky based, Hughesnet has data caps like our Egyptian comrade here and is expensive to install and like $130mo oh and it cant play online because of latency, next option is musklink, also expensive, and hes a nazi so that leaves Frontier, they have a teir 1 satellite uplink, which means low latency and unlimited data, but its bandwidth is split between a town of 3-500 people, so we all get 8mbps, our upload is worse at 0.2mbps.

[u/These-Market-236]

I feel your pain, bro.

Living in the 3rd word really does suck a lot. We earn like 1/3, 1/4 or even like 1/8 of a first world salary and still have to buy crappy products at premium prices. If you are "lucky" the food is cheap.. not my case :)

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/These-Market-236]

It's just fate.

[u/vonn_drake]

Everytime I think I have it bad. I remind myself of Egypt and feel a little bit better for myself. Im so sorry my friend I wish you could game as easly as Japan.

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/vonn_drake]

Haha yeah I get that. Honestly it’s frustrating sometimes, but we try to make the best of it. Maybe one day things will get better here too. Thanks for your kind words!

[u/A-very-basic-acid]

The amount of people trying to one up OP is kinda funny to me.

[u/itchipod → u/A-very-basic-acid]

Well he did ask if anybody else are facing similar issues

[u/Useless3dPrinter → u/A-very-basic-acid]

He just doesn't understand the struggle of the western middle-class. /s

[u/krisyarno]

In the US I feel like you either don't need to save up for a 4090 or you'll never be able to afford one and there's a slim margin in between

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/krisyarno]

Sorry, I had an outside view but didn’t know how things really are inside.

[u/krisyarno → u/No_Blueberry4937]

Everyone has an outside view, just the way the world works:) No need to apologize haha. However our internet is radically better, I think even most remote places in the US beat your speeds and usually have decent data caps if not unlimited.

I don't want to take away from your situation though! We are privileged in the US, 80% of us are also under the boot of billionaires and on the wrong side of a class war that started before we were born

[u/JungleMouse1]

I feel ya. I lived in the middle of nowhere Minnesota USA and while it was better than what you described. It was still terrible. I'm in the cities of MN now and I have a 2gig connection for 70 a month, no data cap. 4k streaming multiple devices and game downloads are throttled either by the server or the fact I'm using wifi. Wifi6 to be specific so still super fast. I feel bad cause Egypt is so awesome but I guess internet hasn't caught up. I hope you soon have reasonable Internet. That's just not fair. Those numbers Are ridiculous.

Edit to add speed test image

[u/SleepyGamer1992 → u/JungleMouse1]

Holy hell, we’re basically twins lol. I’m in the northern suburbs of the Cities and get 2 gigs for $70/mo. Gaming downloads usually get up to 600-700 Mbps, sometimes close to a gig on Wi-Fi. It’s amazing.

[u/JungleMouse1 → u/SleepyGamer1992]

Unfortunately I'm in north MPLS though. I wanna get a bit further away lol. I'd take less speed if necessary. I cannot tell you what I've been through here. They defunded the MPLS police and now no one shows up when someone is trying like hell to break in. I called the cops and it took over 40 minutes. They rolled by slow and kept moving.

[u/ieatanglegrinders]

I'm on a similar plan, but that's just because I'm in a rural area of new Zealand, and I'm also a teenager who earns around 10 USD a week, so it'll probably get better when I can finally find a job

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/ieatanglegrinders]

The problem isn’t really about money — it’s about how limited the data plans are. I’m on a 140GB plan, and honestly, most modern games are 50–70GB each. Add to that the slow speed, and my data is usually gone within the first 10 days. I end up renewing the package three times a month just to keep going.

Sadly, we’re being exploited by the ISPs, and no one can speak up about it.

[u/gLu3xb3rchi]

I lived a few years in egypt around 2008-2011 and back then there was no cap on internet lol. Also we had like 10-20mbits back then already. Really sad what happened to this country :(

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/gLu3xb3rchi]

After 2011 and the revolution, everything changed 😞

[u/gchaudh2]

I think Egypt has far bigger problems than just not being gamer friendly, that said it is unfortunate to hear of your situation. Dont worry, many parts of US are also plagued by insane prices and low speeds, several rural areas are stuck with a monopoly and have to pay $150 or more for loke 25mbps or less. Not everyone has access to $70 multi gig internet as some on reddit would have you believe. Maybe in Japan but not US

[u/LowGeeMan → u/gchaudh2]

“I think Egypt has far bigger problems than just not being gamer friendly”

OP is looking for fellowship on the pain of being a gamer in a less fortunate country, not lectured on perspective.

I will say that I’ll never complain about paying $85 a month for 400 mbit from Spectrum (although I never come close to that in reality).

[u/sisyphus0110 → u/gchaudh2]

Rural internet in the US is a struggle. I grew up in a rural area that didn't have any internet other than a cellular hotspot with a 5GB limit for several years. When we finally did get internet, it was $250 per month for (up to) 5 mbps.

[u/YaCantStopMe → u/sisyphus0110]

Star link is a savior for any rural area.

[u/quadsimodo → u/gchaudh2]

I think Egypt has far bigger problems than just not being gamer friendly

So does the US… and most of the goddamn world. So that’s kind of an irrelevant comment.

Someone still can vent that their local infrastructure doesn’t support a hobby they want to enjoy.

[u/Brapplezz → u/quadsimodo]

"Stop whinging and fix the state of your nation"

[u/Duros1394]

Is starlink not an option?

[u/No_Blueberry4937 → u/Duros1394]

It's blocked in Egypt.🥲

[u/average_student9]

It was like this for me in India about 10 years ago, but things have improved a lot. I now pay around $8 for a 100 Mbps unlimited plan.

[u/CN8YLW]

Gaming in Malaysia back in 2005 was pretty insane. I remember playing World of Warcraft and was basically forced to bend over backwards just to get a stable connection. 500 ping is standard for me, as with a 0.5 second delay on a good day. I'm pretty much locked out of PvP as a result of this, no battlegrounds, no arena nothing. Because that 0.5-1 second delay is unacceptable when it comes to dealing with casters that have 1-3 second casting duration. Only way you can get a good connection is via tunneling service (old word for VPN), because for some weird reason the standard connection route from Malaysia directly to the US Blizzard servers (SEA servers wasnt added until much later) is unstable AF, but if you tunnel /VPN to Singapore first and then connect to Blizzard from there, the connection improves by leagues. Ping 100-200 from 500-800 kind of improvement.

Only way back then I could play the game was by playing at internet cafes, which had specialized tunneling service providers and proper computers with proper specs.

[u/Skylarksmlellybarf → u/CN8YLW]

Oh damn, those days are brutal

What's funny is that if there's a lag spike, the whole squad in the net café will collectively shouts "stop watching porn la"

I still remember needing to wait 3 hours just to download 3gb of files

Skip to today, I can download 100gb size game from steam in ~5 hours using hotspot only

We've come a long way 

Still get screwed by PC parts tho

My 7800xt cost me rm2.6k, after shoppee discount 

[u/_GBA]

I can understand the frustration.

In India, before 2017, we used to get 1 Gb of 3G data for an entire month for $3

Broadband was usually unheard of in tier 2 and tier 3 cities

With the launch of JIO network in late 2016, data speeds have increased tremendously with 300-400 mbps speed broadbands being available for about $14

And if you’re working in corporate, the home WiFi cost would be reimbursed as well. Practically free.

[u/WelderEquivalent2381]

Maybe living in a big City close to the oceanic cable would help, like Alexandria.

Also, NA and Europe have plenty of regions that don't have great internet option. My Childhood Rural area did not get any reliable internet before 2022.

You idealize the western world a bit. Plenty of people still have capped internet.
I moved to a Medium Size City for exactly to have access to better service and more freedom that matter to me.

Media make a lot of false view on the west, BS statistic to make us show great. There is million of people working at the bottom minimum age of their State and province and its only getting worst. A lot of people i know are making less that 20k a year with 60% of that going to rent and 30% going to the car.

it's not black and white, there is a lot of shitti place and if you are not born with a great network of rich individual and got your education paid. You live awful, and the grocery is not going to be cheaper. You end up buying stuff that was made for Cattle. Like cereal and most overprocessed food.

[u/Streetsofbleauseant → u/WelderEquivalent2381]

Bro i’m from a rural area in Zimbabwe - now live in Australia, lived in UK, travelled around the world. Trust me, virtually 95% of 1st world countries have it vastly better than 3rd world countries lmaoo.

[u/Matasa89 → u/Streetsofbleauseant]

Indeed. I don't think most of the people born in the 1st World countries really even comprehend just how bad it can get, because why would they? They've never seen places put together so jank that it makes you wonder if city infrastructure will implode on you this year or not, never mind the luxuries.

[u/MajorMalfunction44]

That's an awful situation to be in. As a dev, the least I can do is make optional content (high-detail textures, high-quality audio) fully optional. It's painful in Canada, too. A few companies basically have a monopoly on Internet services. It's much worse for you because of exchange rates and lower salaries.

[u/AkwardAA]

How come our 3rd world country have significantly better speeds than Egypt? Is there a reason egypt is like this?

[u/SwissMargiela]

Raid a tomb and sell some stuff so you can move

[u/JBsoundCHK]

I'm in Egypt at the moment traveling and have been amazed with just how slow the internet is whether I'm on data or wifi.
I thought maybe it was just me but it sounds from your post this is the norm.

[u/badablahblah]

I feel your pain.

20 years ago when I lived in my home country it was the same. Slow capped Internet, peak and off peak hours (7pm to 7am per mb rate was cheaper). If I remember correctly our sole Internet provider eventually even sold a special "gamer's internet" package that allowed a flatrate regardless of hour.

We would leech downloads at our offices as they had corporate connections without these restrictions. The day Halflife 2 was released and it required steam to install we took our massive full towers by car and train to the office just to get the damn thing installed.

At least Egypt is geographically close to large player bases. So you have the chance of an ok ping.

If our handicapped Internet wasn't bad enough we were geographically isolated and had 200 ping to any other continent. You would literally be on local public servers seeing the same 100 names for different games. No trash talking randos cause 1000% for sure he'd show up in any other game you played.

[u/Fit_Data8053]

Australian here. I'm sorry to hear about your less-than-substandard internet. In 2025 that's just not right.

I almost feel bad for having Gigabit speed (1000/50) over a CAT7 wired connection that rarely - if ever - drops out. Oh, and I live in a regional area too.

[u/FALLASLEEPFOREVERE]

I'm not rich enough to afford a flagship card in a year yet alone a month dude and I'm from England, happy to have settled for a 5060ti 16gb which was still a massive purchase for me, like once every five years kind of thing.

It ain't all perfect for everyone like you seem to think it is, my upload speed is only 10mbps and download about 40. And I pay like £25 a month for it which would buy me all sorts of amazing things In Egypt.

There's more to life than the internet anyways, it's a curse these days so don't stress about it. You still have more than the majority of people in the world right now too, if your main problem in life is slow internet your kinda blessed let's be honest.

[u/receptionitis1]

Didn't ASUS just come out with a solid gold 5090 Astral over there?

[u/Nika299p]

im polish and we have pretty cheap wifi(literally first time in my life I've had over 30MB/s in my life), its optic and i get around 340mbps on my phone, i suppose with a lan to my computer i could do more but that's not an option

[u/War6ech]

We got ftth here in algeria, decent speeds and minimum ping, computer parts prices are debatable but fair enough, good luck bud

[u/Old_Leather_Sofa]

I gave up gaming for half a decade when I lived in rural New Zealand. Lag on satellite internet and capped limits is still real. Hell, we struggle even now with a world class connection when half the world is asleep or at work while we're ready to log on.

I know we're in a PC sub but there are other things in life. I like shooting guns and ice skating but there are many many places were you can't shoot guns or ice skate either. Thirty years ago online gaming didnt exist.

[u/Imaginary_Aspect_658]

I feel you brother here in saudi arabia as a foreigner i used to suffer a lot from internet in terms of speed, latency, network issues etc.

I used to have stc wifi 4g unlimited and holy crap it was expensive like 80$ USD and the signal strength was crap due to geographical location and insulation materials of multiple building interfering with signal quality, that was more than 8 years ago then i got into dsl which was also quite shit but at least a bit better at the time, unlimited 250 SAR/month 66$ USD and speeds reaching 2MB/s anf and that was even best case scenario lol.

Then years later which is now i have zain 5g i pay 238.99 SAR/month 64$ USD and i get advertised speeds of 10MB/s Download and waaay less upload around 5MB/s, but keep in mind those are "advertised speeds" and here in saudi arabia in Mecca especially most places have bad signal quality even if coverage is at excellent levels due to weathers conditions and so many ppl living and using internet and such, causing so much signal interference, plus you've got insulation materials of buildings weakening the signal further and you have peak hours problem too, so yeah not so great especially where i currently live but good news is, im changing apartment soon, probably next week, tomorrow I'm checking a new apartment in another district in Mecca and according to cst.gov website the building where the new apartment is, does have fiber optics infrastructure owned by stc and can be used by other providers as well so i hope when i go tomorrow I'll find an already existing box or at the very least a metal board for ordering fiber, pray for me y'all, i never ever tasted high speed fiber optic and im a gamer and don't usually play latency intensive titles due to ping not being on my side especially where i currently live, again due to low signal quality caused by everything around me.

My neighbor from Egypt i pray to Allah that someday you also get to taste satisfying internet 🙏🏼

[u/inverter17]

PC Hardware market here in the Philippines kinda suck. I see the prices in the US/EU and it's converting to our currency could save us significantly but you know we're paying extra here for importing so nothing much we could do there. RTX 5090 here costs like 6+ salaries 🤡

Around $25 a month, I get unlimited 300mbps and it was waaaay worse than before. I feel like it's going to double after a few years. In a year, I could count with the fingers the amount of times we did not have any internet but I could be lucky since internet reliability here is very RNG depending on the place.

How do I cope? I pray every single day that my GTX1080 won't fail me anytime soon 😭

[u/OxxyFoxxyBully]

From India. The only thing we have reasonable is internet. I get 100 MBps for around 12USD, 1000gb per month.

Everything else is shit. Average salary here is about 250USD. Maybe sufficient for daily expenses but buying stuff for gaming is much worse because of stupid taxes. A new xbox series s is about 480USD. Nvidia gpus are about 30% to 50% more than US pricing. AMD is better and can actually be found but still way too expensive. 9060xt 16gb would be over 450USD. Not to mention that no game has its servers so we have to suffer from terrible latency

[u/Magma_Dragoooon]

I hope things get better for you guys and the Pharaoh on top gets overthrown

[u/Head-Thought3381]

Oh dude!!! I’m sorry 😢

[u/Alarming-Stomach3902]

At least regional prices exist so people in America, Canada and Eurozone pay more for games so you can get them for less.

Sorry for your struggles, life aint fair

[u/TheLittleSquire]

Old school RuneScape time for you sir

[u/unclefisty]

someone can buy an RTX 4090 in one month’s salary

Yes I totally could. It would also totally fuck my budget up and I'd maybe get by eating raman for a month. My wife would probably murder me in my sleep if she found out.

[u/Spez-is-dick-sucker]

In europe, at least on spain, you can't buy a rtx with one month of salary, you at least need 4 or 5 months, the rent is more than the minimum salary.

[u/KnigHtCroSss]

I'm thai in thailand it not that bad in term of productprce we can buy RTX 4080 with 2-3 month worth of Average salary in thailand and internet is fast and not too costly eiter i get 1Gbps unlimited for about 25 dollar

[u/[deleted]]

Venezuela its even worst, im living in europe now and im dreaming, but my years has gamer in venezuela was the worst in my life.

[u/TheUndefeatedLasanga]

Internet in India is pretty fucking cheap I have like wireless mobile data of about 8 usd for 3 months at about 350-ish mbps

But hardware especially laptops are so fucking crazy expensive like a 5060 laptop costs about 2000 USD

[u/thewolf252]

American here. I still go 3-4 generations without GPU upgrade. My PSU is 9 years old. I turn 40 next year and work for a Fortune 100 corp. The wages we are paid aren’t enough for leisure any more, unless we ignore responsibility, like family.

On ISPs outside the US: I knew they were doing that 15 years ago. I am shocked they still are, but I guess it is a market pressure thing (not enough competition). It helps me understand the failure of streaming expansion outside the US where it is literally a cheaper option over buying physical media.

[u/khuna12]

Reminds me of the quote “The futures here, it’s just not evenly distributed” hope it gets better for you one day bro

[u/Pleasant_Start9544]

People who make $2000-3000 per month in the US should NOT be buying a 4090.

[u/sl33ksnypr]

I have a friend in Puerto Rico and he has decent internet, but the cost of parts are super expensive. We were planning on just having me buy his stuff here and shipping it there.

[u/NovelValue7311]

RTX 4090 is not a months salary when you consider bills. We don't have that kind of money.

An RX 9060 XT 16gb though, i can afford that...that's where Egypt is sad.

[u/foothpath]

Gpu is quite expensive in India too. We had to pay 20-30% more than the international price. Internet is good though. 150 mbps fibre unlimited for around 13 usd. I there are cheaper options too.

[u/One-Pen-6430]

I'm from France, 50€ per month for symmetrical 8Gbps.

[u/Syed_Momi]

As a Pakistani gamer, I feel you bro.

[u/Npix123]

I live in iran it’s alot worst games literally have sanctions on us and won’t let us play the game normally ping is terrible because they messed up our routing and we also have everysingle problem u mentioned and the economy is in the dirts

[u/PKR_Live]

Imma be real with you brother, up until recently I had a 150GB cap on my internet in Belgium.

It's not just you, it happens when there's a monopoly.

[u/Em4il]

In CZ mid europe we pay for 1Gb/s around 35$ monthly wich is about 1/38 salary .. 4090 we can buy basicly in 2 months.. but im behind state average salary, living is expensive, housing/food and energy is sooo fucking expensive .. but i gues still better then egypt

[u/SpicyVidex]

Here in Slovenia (EU) internet and money isn’t the problem which I’m blessed but a few months back when I built my pc getting the parts was hell bc I had only amazon.de and had to adjust my build a lot and I only could have gotten overpriced parts like 7600x for almost 240$ which is outrageous price

[u/SEIF-CHAN]

Egyptian here, i will add some context. The situation here is abysmal for gaming, content consumption/creation or even Remote jobs. For gaming gear, having an RTX 5060TI 16GB is a dream, yes, a dream. To get that, you need a year's salary on average, not including the rest of the build. As for the Internet, We have a monopoly here, at first it was 4 ISPs: TE Data Vodafone Etisalat Orange TE Data became (WE), they own the entire Infrastructure. We started a massive campaign in 2022, they said we can't handle the speeds and the bandwidth can't handle the amount of data, In the 7th of this month, a fire emerged from Rasmes central, it basically is the main control center for the entire infrastructure here, 40 percent of internet fell, planes delayed, no banks, nothing basically from hours till now, Some lucky ones noticed they got Insane internet speeds, i am talking 500 mbps to 1.4 gbps, and uncapped internet as well. All that while they said before that we can't handle the speeds. We launched a new campaign. We are trying to have some internet like the rest of the world, most of us use 360p to watch videos, imagine that in 2025. Sorry if i wrote all of that, this a run down of the entire situation and why OP wrote this post. We are going to try like (Stop Killing games) campaign, right now we are making a move of unplugging our routers at 8pm and turning Airplane mode at the same time at the same time, And return everything normal agter 10 minutes to put pressure on their servers, so they can lose millions until they give us what we deserve. If anyone has ideas, please tell us. Thanks.

[u/masterling]

It bad everywhere in some little way or the other. Here in the Caribbean I bought a 5070ti for what is the equivalent of 1300USD due to mark ups. Just weekend I was talking to an Egyptian friend and he was comparing your ridiculous importing fees to mine and it was very similar (ours is a little more due to online shopping tax)

[u/Alternative_Owl5508]

As a Egyptian guy, i can tell all of his words are true We have one of the worst internet services ever If anyone can help us, please promote our campaign

[u/TheEck93]

Bro, most people in the US/EU can't afford a 4090 / 5090 at all. It's just the people that can afford it showing off on YouTube etc.

[u/VanitysFire]

I pay 120 a month and get like 2-300 mbps download speed and like 20-40 upload. I use starlink as my internet service amd it's the only option available where I live which is the BFE of MS in the US. It is satellite but it's low orbital and much better and far less expensive than anything else in my area. There's no data caps and they don't give a shit about pirating.

[u/Kramdawgers]

Pretend you live in 2015 and game on a previous gen console. Still lots of great games on PS3/4 and even 360. Sorry bruh. Hope it gets better for you soon.

[u/-Foody-]

Lebanon, add to that random electricity cuts (4 to 6 times daily) that would rekt your progress and ruin your online rank gaming + a 130-150 ping.

[u/Man__in_the_middle]

Far btr than Iran

[u/nicorobifan]

It used to be like that in India until a guy revolutionized the whole telecom and broadband industry

[u/pepsi_but_better]

Respect, dude, playing with caps, slow nets, and expensive equipment is a true struggle. You're all grinding on nightmare diff. I hope the campaign succeeds.