Can I use Wi-Fi Direct to share Internet?

Can you actually share your internet using Wi-Fi Direct? That's what I was wondering the other day, you know? I was trying to get my friend's laptop online at a coffee shop – their data was shot, poor things – and I remembered hearing something about Wi-Fi Direct. So, yeah, the short answer is: kind of, but it's not quite as straightforward as you might think.

It can share internet, apparently. I read somewhere – maybe it was a tech blog, I can't even remember now – that it lets your phone, say, connect to several other devices at once. Like a little personal hotspot, but different. That's way more flexible than Bluetooth, right? Bluetooth's always been so... stingy. One device at a time? Seriously? Come on!

But honestly, trying to get my friend's laptop working with Wi-Fi Direct was a mess. I think I spent longer messing around with the settings than it would have taken to just tether my phone using the regular hotspot. Maybe I was doing something wrong? It just seemed overly complicated for such a simple task. I'm not a tech whiz, you know. Probably some setting I missed or something.

So, while it technically can share internet... it's probably not the easiest or most reliable way to do it. At least, not in my experience! Maybe there are some super-easy ways to do it that I'm just too dense to figure out. I'll have to look into it properly sometime. Maybe. If I ever need to share my internet again that is... which hopefully won't be for a while!