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The web sucks if you have a slow connection

danluu.com

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Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#261

Post by DougBTX »

hueving wrote: post #237
SilasX wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! A Jevons Effect[1] in a web site's bandwidth! [1] When an increase in the efficiency with which a resource is used causes total usage to increase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

I'm not sure why this gets a special term. It sounds like basic supply and demand. If you decrease the price of something by increasing the efficiency of production, you will obviously capture more of the demand curve. What am I missing?

> What am I missing?

The paradox is that they tried to reduce demand to reduce consumption, but accidentally reduced price, so increased consumption.

The bit you're missing is that duality, that an action intended to reduce demand could reduce price instead. Applying rules of supply and demand happens as a step after categorising the action, that the action was miscategorised led to a misprediction.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#262

Post by jdormit »

Gracana wrote: post #134
danappelxx wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's quite unfair. JavaScript is also used for creating interactive web applications - not just tracking users. Really your attitude comes off unnecessarily aggressive.

Obviously things like gdocs need JavaScript, but blogs and news sites and forums sure don't.

I think it depends on what the JavaScript is used for. I agree that blogs and news site should be static, but forums - and in general, sites with a high degree of user interactivity - can see significant UX improvements with some JavaScript, for things like asynchronous loading, changing the UI without reloading the page, and even nice animations (although many of those can be done in CSS these days). However, graceful degradation is very important - disabliing JavaScript on these sites shouldn't break them, merely impact the UX.

[Edit] "blogs and news sites should be static" -> this should read "blogs and news sites don't need JavaScript"

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#263

Post by Pica_soO »

Wasnt this "backwards" compatability the reason blizzard was always so succesfull? Using old but sturdy tech, that would work on the slowest of machines.

Actually one could make a whole slowMo WebStandard from this. No Pictures, just svgs, no constant elaborate javascript chatter, no advertising. No videos, no music, no gifs, just animated svgs. Actually, that would be something lovely. Necessity begets ingenubeauty.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#264

Post by curun1r »

gabemart wrote: post #158

Something I have had at the back of my mind for a long time: in 2017, what's the correct way to present optional resources that will improve the experience of users on fast/uncapped connections, but that user agents on slow/capped connections can safely ignore? Like hi-res hero images, or video backgrounds, etc. Every time a similar question is posed on HN, someone says "If the assets aren't needed, don't serve them…

This seems like the thing that we'd want cooperation with the browser vendors rather than everyone hacking together some JS to make it happen. If browsers could expose the available bandwidth as a media query, it would be trivial to have different resources for different connections.

This would also handle the situation where the available bandwidth isn't indicative of whether the user wants the high-bandwidth experience. For example, if you're on a non-unlimited mobile plan, it doesn't take that long to load a 10mb image over 4G, but those 10mb chunks add up to overage charges pretty quickly, so the user may want to set his browser to report a lower bandwidth amount.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#265

Post by splatcollision »

gabemart wrote: post #158

Something I have had at the back of my mind for a long time: in 2017, what's the correct way to present optional resources that will improve the experience of users on fast/uncapped connections, but that user agents on slow/capped connections can safely ignore? Like hi-res hero images, or video backgrounds, etc. Every time a similar question is posed on HN, someone says "If the assets aren't needed, don't serve them…

Design your UX so that any large assets can be requested at will by the user, and indicate the file size? That way it's the user's choice if they want to load that large video over their slow network, etc.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#266

Post by legostormtroopr »

iLoch wrote: post #73
legostormtroopr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because we have the capability to work beyond that capacity now in most cases Except if you are in a rural area of a developed country, or in practically any undeveloped country. Most of Africa, Asia and South America have abysmal internet connections, and rural parts of Australia (even a few hours drive from a major city) are only able to get satellite internet. Tech people often fail to realise how divided and li…

Absolutely, but those are secondary markets for most American businesses because there are an abundance of issues with delivering any application to those areas. Whether its political, cultural, financial, etc. Priority for most businesses and website owners is to serve the people you know you can serve first, then work on supporting those other areas. Twitter, like most companies, exists to make money. If you're bus…

Rural areas secondary markets for most American businesses?

This isn't just about Twitter, its about making sure if you are helping build a local Mom & Pop Shop's online presence - which is where all business is now days - then you build it in a way that their customers might care about.

There is a world outside of cities, and a lot of people live there. The tech world needs to wake up to that, because those people where Ubers don't go, GrubHub doesn't deliver, they exist (and vote) too.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#267

Post by nommm-nommm »

SilasX wrote: post #248
hueving wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this gets a special term. It sounds like basic supply and demand. If you decrease the price of something by increasing the efficiency of production, you will obviously capture more of the demand curve. What am I missing?

A lot of people naively assume that if you can use a resource more efficiently, then total use will go down, "because you don't need as much, right?" See: the entire popular support for efficiency mandates. (Edit: Also, this very example -- I certainly didn't expect that a faster site would allow that many more users: my model was more "either they want to see your site, or they don't", i.e. inelastic demand.) The (c…

This sounds like the reason widening roads doesn't usually ease congestion.

Which, really, can be summed up by my favorite Yogi Berra-ism "No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded."

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#268

Post by r00fus »

Someone1234 wrote: post #21

I found out this the hard way. T-Mobile used to offer 2G internet speeds internationally in 100+ countries included in Simple Choice subscriptions. 2G is limited to 50 kbit/s, that's slower than a 56K modem. While this absolutely fine for background processes (e.g. notifications) and even checking your email, most websites never loaded at these speeds. Resources would time out, and the adverts alone could easily exce…

I mainly used it for things like slack, skype and emails, and mapping.

With iOS9+ content blockers and things like Google AMP, I think the web is a lot more usable.

Apps tend to be less bloated in terms of bandwidth as well, since they usually don't load as many assets on request.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#269

Post by curun1r »

gnud wrote: post #173
gabemart wrote: post #158

Something I have had at the back of my mind for a long time: in 2017, what's the correct way to present optional resources that will improve the experience of users on fast/uncapped connections, but that user agents on slow/capped connections can safely ignore? Like hi-res hero images, or video backgrounds, etc. Every time a similar question is posed on HN, someone says "If the assets aren't needed, don't serve them…

Random idea: Get the current time in a JS block in the head, before you load any CSS and JS, and compare it to the time when the dom ready event fires. If there's no real difference, load hi-res backgrounds and so on. If there is a real time difference, don't.

Wouldn't that be measuring latency more so than bandwidth? You'd run the danger of confusing a satellite internet connection (high(ish) bandwidth, high latency) with a third-world, low bandwidth connection.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#270

Post by iamdave »

5ilv3r wrote: post #208
freehunter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah when I used to run over my T-Mobile data allotment (in the US) and they dropped me to whatever speed they throttle you to when your "high speed" data is gone, Google Maps wouldn't load, Facebook wouldn't load, YouTube wouldn't load. I remember using all of those things back in the days when a 3G connection was a luxury, back when Windows was the best smartphone platform. What happened between then and now that s…

High paying customers are going to have high speed connections. No one will talk about it, but it's discrimination. If you are on a slow connection, they don't want your kind on their site. If you try, they will mock you for not knowing your place.

No one will talk about it, but it's discrimination.

This will make a few segments of people cringe because much like the topic of racism, there's a school of thought that it only counts when things are exhibited in severe forms like water cannons, attack dogs or restrictive housing covenants or otherwise people being directly being told 'no' because of superficial topics like race, gender or sexual orientation.

But as a tech guy who's slowly pivoting towards law, I've long held the belief that technology will become the next battle ground for civil rights-and has the potential to even change (in the sense of expanding the definition of) how we talk about civil rights. Think along the lines of people being left behind when it comes to accessing information they need to request public resources as more and more cities move towards online only forms, or even utilization of "entitlement programs" to pay for internet access (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/fcc-expands-o...).

Now it may not be active discrimination in the sense that one will be outright told 'no', but disparate impact deserves to be at the table of discussing this sort of thing.

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