The simple fact is, there's just not enough bandwidth on BA flights. Without sounding like I'm talking down to people, but your average flyer has no idea about bandwidth - we've had people on this board ask if they can stream live sport on BA's wifi. As a tech guy, this kind of question infuriates me as people forget there are hundreds of people on the flight and you'd only need a handful to start streaming live content for it to be completely saturated. So many people want to use it to connect to Spotify and stream their music etc etc.

I tend to use the flight as my daytime office, particularly if I make the BA178 out of JFK. Very occasionally the wifi is so slow it will barely even download emails, never mind stream live content. That's one reason why it has (for now) to remain 'exclusive' and paid, simply to help regulate use.

In addition, there are plenty of of sections of the flight where you lose wifi entirely, often for many minutes.

Hopefully with United using Starlink, this might change the way planes provide wifi in future: Starlink Business | Aviation