And of course there’s the comment in ‘All good things’ by Dr. Crusher when she says she can’t believe how they got by with 2D controls in the old days, and how the current holographic controls were much easier to use.
So, Star Fleet made the same transition as the US Navy, from a touchscreen to 3D tactile controls.
I get what you are saying, but that analogy fails as well. There is a physical limit to how much one person can eat, while there is no limit to how much someone might take home.
Whereas with data, there is no limit intrinsic to tethering vs in-phone.
More to the point, in practice, people can easily use as much data in-phone as on a laptop, due to streaming video. Think, for example, of someone streaming music via YouTube for hours on end.
So, Star Fleet made the same transition as the US Navy, from a touchscreen to 3D tactile controls.