Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's rather a "performance is more important than functionality" philosophy.
In the case of the devices we're talking about, performance is effectively functionality.
The most performant site is a blank page.
How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
391–400 of 613 posts
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Invidious for browsing the site, and watch the actual videos via a script that deobfuscates and gets the actual stream URL and then passes that to VLC. As another data point, YouTube a decade ago would've been perfectly fine on that hardware too. The culprit is web bloat in general, and more specifically the monstrosities of abstraction that have become common in JS. Even for those who don't believe at all in "…
Can you share that script? Also using invidious, but passing to vlc sounds good for saving cpu cycles.
Just use something like this:
mpv --demuxer-max-bytes=1024MiB --vo=gpu --opengl-es=yes --ytdl --ytdl-format="best[heightRe: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This stuff is simpler than we let it be sometimes, folks. Meanwhile watches a team build a cathedral when all they needed was a shack.
Why not to build a cathedral if someone else is paying? I've never seen companies where developers are rewarded for performance improvement or any kind of improvement. Did an improvement? Nice! Good job! And that's it.
The point is, you build a shack so you can build a cathedral where it’s warranted. If you are stuck maintaining a cathedral you can’t move on to bigger better things.
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#394As someone with recent experience using a relatively slow Android phone, it can be absolutely brutal to load some web pages, even ones that only appear to be serving text and images (and a load of trackers/ads presumably). The network is never the bottleneck here. This problem is compounded by several factors. One is that older/slower phones cannot always use fully-featured browsers such as Firefox for mobile. The ap…
Can you run all your traffic through a self-hosted pihole to avoid such things?
You're already too rich and too tech aware to qualify as the low end described in the article if you ask that question :)
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#395Dan's point about being aware of the different levels of inequality in the world is something I strongly agree with, but that should also include the middle-income countries, especially in Latin America and Southeast Asia. For example, a user with a data plan with a monthly limit in the single-digit GBs, and a RAM/CPU profile resembling a decade-old US flagship. That's good enough to use Discourse at all, but the exp…
If all the sites tot more efficient it may also increase longevity of laptops and PCs where unsavvy people might just “need a new computer it is getting slow”. Also applies to bloatware shipped with computers. To the point where I was offered a $50 “tune up” to a new laptop I purchased recently. Imagine a new car dealer offered you that!
What’s the financial incentive in that? Manufacturers ideally want you to buy a whole new device every year, they don’t want you repairing or extending the life.
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#396I'm normally a fan of Dan Luu's posts but I felt this one missed the mark. The LCP/CPU table is a good one, but from there the article turns into a bit on armchair psychology. From some random comments coming from Discourse's founder, readers are asked to build up an idea of what attitudes software engineers supposedly have. Even Knuth gets dragged into the mud based on comments he made about single vs multi-core per…
I thought he summarised it pretty well. Jeff Atwood was only picked as example. But there are LOTS of high profile, huge followers web developments thought leaders constantly pump out similar views. And a lot of their followers just blindly accept what they were told.
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has a cumulative effect and drives the continual "upgrade" cycle. When you consider the life-time of an average mobile device, and the resources required to manufacture and ship them, it's a not insignificant problem.
Random source from google[1]: >Berners-Lee writes that in 2020, there were 7.7 billion mobile phones in use, with a footprint of roughly 580 million tonnes of CO2e. This equates to approximately 1% of all global emissions Of course, not everyone is replacing their phones yearly. Another source[2] says the average consumer phone is 3 years old. That works out to 0.33% of global emissions, assuming the phones aren't re…
Isn’t that quite huge number to be fair?
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually bad web software correlates with bad content. Therefore having a slow device is an excellent filter helping to avoid garbage.
Unfortunately the modern web has consolidated to a point where you need to use them. For example, small local businesses that don’t have a web site but do have a Facebook page.
seems fair to correlate "small local businesses that don’t have a web site but do have a Facebook page" with "bad content"
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#399As someone with recent experience using a relatively slow Android phone, it can be absolutely brutal to load some web pages, even ones that only appear to be serving text and images (and a load of trackers/ads presumably). The network is never the bottleneck here. This problem is compounded by several factors. One is that older/slower phones cannot always use fully-featured browsers such as Firefox for mobile. The ap…
Even if you do use a standard browser, companies will force you to use an app by making there website broken (on purpose?).
Random recent example: Nike. Popping useless errors upon checkout in the webshop. Support: "oh, we're so sorry, just try the app, k bye".
Another example of major companies with broken websites more often than not: (European) airline booking websites.
And major companies think this is totally fine and doesn't damage their brand? I mean not being able to create a functioning website with unlimited funds in 2024 is not a bad look?!
Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
#400This article is basically unreadable for me 48 y/o on desktop). In the dev tools I added the following to the body to make it readable: font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.5em; max-width: 38rem; Now look how readable (and beautiful) it is. I read a lot of Dan Luu's posts, and each time I have to do this sort of thing to make it readable. Seriously, techies, it's an extra 64 Bytes to make your page more readable.
> max-width: 38rem; Now look how readable (and beautiful) it is.
How is it readable when you're limiting text width and not taking advantage of the whole screen you paid for?
[Turning 48 next month and wearing glasses.]