As it stands, you probably won't mind much given what AT&T has in store. It'll repurpose that newly freed spectrum for LTE, and the move will ultimately create more headroom for 5G wireless. Just as with the end to analog cell service, the small sacrifice you make now will likely pay much larger dividends down the road.

The shutdown is also a reminder of just how far mobile data has come since 2G hit the scene (in the US, at the turn of the millennium). EDGE was considered fine at a time when any mobile data was a relative novelty, and the most you did with it was check email or surf the most basic of websites. Now, even a modestly-sized app or photo download would absolutely crush 2G -- the modern mobile internet depends on speeds that are orders of magnitude faster. We can only imagine what it'll be like when 3G bites the dust and LTE is considered the baseline.