> However, the 1.6Mbps 3G connection emulated by HTTP Archive is very slow, so we should expect significant performance improvements as bandwidth improves. The average website downloads 1.7MB of data in 2020, which will take at least 9s to download on the HTTP Archive connection.
I have family in an African country where the only reasonably priced home internet connection is about 56kbps over DSL (yes, dialup speeds over DSL, very confusing). Web pages have gone from very slow to unusable very quick.
I believe and appreciate that the users most people target have faster devices now, especially in the core hubs of Web development like Silicon Valley. However, this trend of "we can fit more data in because devices are faster" is horrible for anyone already behind in available technology or even on a limited data plan.
My father uses my old smartphone, a Oneplus One with the latest release of LineageOS. This device runs a Qualcom 801, a chip that was considered to have flagship speeds t the time of its release. WiFi speeds are over 100mbps, but websites and applications are still getting slow somehow.
Even a mid-range or cheap smartphone has a better GPU than older devices, and there are many of those out there. The advice to test on budget smartphones is solid, but people often go out and buy a new cheap phone instead of using something that was popular a few years ago. People who can't afford or don't see the value in getting a new S20 don't necessarily have cheap smartphones, they often have second hand phones or hand-me-downs as well. Frameworks like Flutter and browser engines using canvas are very noticeably slow on those older devices because of the advancements GPU tech has made, as CPU tech improvements in smartphones have begun to slow down over the years.
Is the web slower? No, not for the people you want to sell your product to. The question is, why should we accept this bloat? Web applications can be as slow as you want to make them with festures and pretty designs for all I care, but the web in general doesn't need two megabytes of javascript to render a manual or a forum post. The metrics discussed here are wrong in the context they were originally used in, so the article does have a point. However, I don't think we should say the web hasn't gotten slower because computers have increased speeds to compensate with the load. Every byte you save, every script you ignore, every image you compress can have significant impact on hundreds of millions of not billions. If you can't justify that to your team lead, use the argument that the less resources you use, the better the users' battery lives are and the more responsive a site feels. The impact is about the same.
I have family in an African country where the only reasonably priced home internet connection is about 56kbps over DSL (yes, dialup speeds over DSL, very confusing). Web pages have gone from very slow to unusable very quick.
I believe and appreciate that the users most people target have faster devices now, especially in the core hubs of Web development like Silicon Valley. However, this trend of "we can fit more data in because devices are faster" is horrible for anyone already behind in available technology or even on a limited data plan.
My father uses my old smartphone, a Oneplus One with the latest release of LineageOS. This device runs a Qualcom 801, a chip that was considered to have flagship speeds t the time of its release. WiFi speeds are over 100mbps, but websites and applications are still getting slow somehow.
Even a mid-range or cheap smartphone has a better GPU than older devices, and there are many of those out there. The advice to test on budget smartphones is solid, but people often go out and buy a new cheap phone instead of using something that was popular a few years ago. People who can't afford or don't see the value in getting a new S20 don't necessarily have cheap smartphones, they often have second hand phones or hand-me-downs as well. Frameworks like Flutter and browser engines using canvas are very noticeably slow on those older devices because of the advancements GPU tech has made, as CPU tech improvements in smartphones have begun to slow down over the years.
Is the web slower? No, not for the people you want to sell your product to. The question is, why should we accept this bloat? Web applications can be as slow as you want to make them with festures and pretty designs for all I care, but the web in general doesn't need two megabytes of javascript to render a manual or a forum post. The metrics discussed here are wrong in the context they were originally used in, so the article does have a point. However, I don't think we should say the web hasn't gotten slower because computers have increased speeds to compensate with the load. Every byte you save, every script you ignore, every image you compress can have significant impact on hundreds of millions of not billions. If you can't justify that to your team lead, use the argument that the less resources you use, the better the users' battery lives are and the more responsive a site feels. The impact is about the same.