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How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

danluu.com

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Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#451

Post by Panzer04 »

gruez wrote: post #351
MrVandemar wrote: post #341

Earlier 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…

To be clear, these emissions include the manufacturing cost, which for reasonable users seems to make up ~80-90% of the carbon footprint. The power usage of the phone itself and associated data centres etc is only a small portion.

It's still somewhat surprising that one could attribute 0.2% of global emissions solely to phone power consumption... I would have expected it to be lower.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#452

Post by wraptile »

nottorp wrote: post #419
wraptile wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI the optimal line length is 50-75 characters and that has been the standard for text since the type writers. You don't want to move your neck when you read a single line that's kinda silly.

> that has been the standard for text since the type writers I have a feeling it was the standard because they used the minimum font size to make the letters readable, and that's how much it fit on the physical page width. Which was standardized before typewriters for unknown historical reasons? > You don't want to move your neck when you read a single line that's kinda silly. I don't have to move my neck to read the…

It's been this way forever because it's not particularly difficult science and is extremely easy to test for so there are probably thousands of papers covering this. Here's a good summary by Baymard Institute[1].

Also WCAG recommends line length set to 1 - https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

2 - https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/visual-presentat...

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#453

Post by lifthrasiir »

BlackFingolfin wrote: post #420
lelanthran wrote: post #126

This 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.

I just activate reader mode on his pages, works great. (Not disagreeing with you, just stating another workaround) Also wish his pages had dates on them (one or both of first posted / last updated) AFAIK he intentionally leaves them out, I don't get why.

> AFAIK he intentionally leaves them out, I don't get why.

Some people like to brag about the timelessness of their articles [1], and that might be one reason. (I personally don't fully agree though, even the linked original WikiWikiWeb page has a last edited date.)

[1] https://wiki.c2.com/?WikiNow

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#454

Post by BeFlatXIII »

grishka wrote: post #185

That Discourse guy is a classic example of someone designing their product for the world they wished existed instead of the world we actually live in. Devices with Qualcomm SoCs exist in billions, and will keep existing and keep being manufactured and sold for the foreseeable future. No amount of whining will change that. Get over it and optimize for them. People who use these devices won't care about your whining, t…

Or they take the route to say “not for you”

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#455

Post by keybored »

porcoda wrote: post #313

I like how most people blame bosses or scary big companies. No developers appear willing to admit that there is a large cohort of not that great web programmers who don’t know much (and appear to not WANT to know much) about efficiency. They’re just as to blame for the sad world of web software as the big boss or corporate overlord that forced someone to make bad software.

The whole point of hierarchical organizations is that those higher up have more influence than those at the lower tiers. Cutting the blame in half doesn’t make sense.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#456

Post by keybored »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #436
bluquark wrote: post #66

Dan'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…

> For example, a user with a data plan with a monthly limit in the single-digit GBs I live in a poor Southeast Asian country. People with small data plans don't use data from efficient websites, they use wifi which is omnipresent. 30GB of data on a monthly plan is $3.64. Which is about 4-6 hours of minimum wage (minimum wage is lower in agricultural areas). But more to the point, people don't use data profligately li…

I mean not using Data Plan here in Northern Europe was me 11 years ago… and me using it sparingly because video or songs would blow through the Data Plan instantly was me eight years ago.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#457

Post by BeFlatXIII »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #13
dexwiz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting downvoted but I think despite the tone you are correct. 10 years ago corporate guidance on web dev was backwards compatibility going back several versions. Now it’s hardly any concern for anything more than 6 months old. More than anything I think it’s because corporate IT has had to modernize due to security. Security now wants you to update constantly instead of running old vetted software. You also…

Part of it was that users were terrible at updating browsers. You needed to support Internet Explorer 6, or cut off a third of your customers. It sucked. Now every browser gets updates, automatically and aggressively. The only real outlier is Safari, but even that updates way quicker than older browsers used to. As a result, who needs backward compatibility?

Without all the compatibility shims, it means that you can drop coat bloat sooner when the JS gets replaced with a native browser capability.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#458

Post by II2II »

doubled112 wrote: post #266
II2II wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Canada and have a triple-digit plan, in MBs. It's for emergency use only. It would be nice if something as simple as checking on power outages didn't chew up a good portion of the data plan.

I had a 200MB plan for $35/month until early 2022. It was an old Koodo plan. I never used it. I don't do a lot. WiFi at home, drive to work, WiFi at work, drive to home. Travelling with the kids I've found the new plan makes life easier.

Yeah, different people need different things out of their phones. Yet the point remains that stingy data plans still exist in developed countries. Even though people may have better devices than those mentioned in the article (it is easier to justify a one-time expense than a recurring one), there are people who are stuck with them for various reasons. Affordability is definitely one of the reasons.

Even so, we should avoid pigeonholing those who have limited access to data as poor people. There are other reasons.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#460

Post by CaptainFever »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #436
bluquark wrote: post #66

Dan'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…

> For example, a user with a data plan with a monthly limit in the single-digit GBs I live in a poor Southeast Asian country. People with small data plans don't use data from efficient websites, they use wifi which is omnipresent. 30GB of data on a monthly plan is $3.64. Which is about 4-6 hours of minimum wage (minimum wage is lower in agricultural areas). But more to the point, people don't use data profligately li…

Thank you for the first hand experience anecdote!

I think one way for first world country citizens to empathise with this is how people behave when on roaming data plans during overseas trips. One does keep to public WiFi as much as possible and keep mobile data usage to a minimum or for emergency purposes.

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