HTTPArchive's "State of the Web" report from a couple of years ago looked at over 6 million URLs and discovered the median size increased by 354% between 2010 and 2021, from 467KB to 2123.6KB. [1]
That isn't bad in itself.
More data to download could simply mean higher resolution images, or an increased use of video, or more JS functionality that the user has requested. Those can be useful things. The problem is if the sites aren't delivering any additional benefit to the user in return for that bandwidth. If it's things like tracking, ads, and pointless gimmicks then most people consider it wasted. That's what we need to look at. Not simply 'bigger is worse'.
That's the entire point of the article. It isn't a complaint about the size of websites. It's a complaint about the ratio of size to usefulness. News websites in particular are getting bigger, but they're not getting better.
> The problem is if the sites aren't delivering any additional benefit to the user in return for that bandwidth.
While this isn't directly tied to bandwidth metrics per se, there's also something to be said about usefulness from a utilitarian perspective: Instagram infinite scrolling experiences full of HD beach selfies aren't exactly advancing civilization in any meaningful way, both in the sense that the impetus to appear "successful" is essentially glorifying sloth, and in the sense that consuming that type of content takes time away from more productive pursuits. Even political news, which in theory ought to serve to increase understanding of policy, these days often looks more like real life soap operas.
It's tricky to talk about this in terms of metrics, since obviously downtime and "useless" entertainment have their place as a decompression activities, but I often get a feeling that nowadays there's too much emphasis on vapid fun at the expense of "productive" fun (e.g. activities like hacking on a side project, or even just reading a properly intellectually stimulating article over yet another shallow hot take).
Sometimes I can't help but cynically think that perverse "engagement" incentives are at least somewhat connected to ballooning bandwidth consumption.
> Sometimes I can't help but cynically think that perverse "engagement" incentives are at least somewhat connected to ballooning bandwidth consumption.
Companies building these user experiences are often incentivized to have fast experiences that could avoid bandwidth consumption. For example, some sites started serving GIFs as videos because the images were used as discussion replies. The video files were smaller for users. I won't claim this is universal.
IMO the woes of modern sites and social media are much more connected to everyone now being connected on a mobile device. They are reachable and you can manipulate our vices. A cross-cutting concern is that this has created significant demand for developers and product managers. People are throwing together products more quickly than they will admit and then moving on. The next set of people are only allowed to pile on. Lots of experienced people know the issues and how to fix them, but across the whole industry they have little sway.
Overall, it's a much more complicated human-centric issue than the one you've described.
Can you really say that websites today aren't delivering more value to users than they did in 2010? Just looking at the sheer growth in internet users, online services, online communication, e-commerce etc. in that time frame shows that that isn't true.
News sites are most susceptible to bloat. They deliver exactly the same amount of news as ten years ago, but today they have a million more trackers and other bits of javascript.
That isn't bad in itself.
More data to download could simply mean higher resolution images, or an increased use of video, or more JS functionality that the user has requested. Those can be useful things. The problem is if the sites aren't delivering any additional benefit to the user in return for that bandwidth. If it's things like tracking, ads, and pointless gimmicks then most people consider it wasted. That's what we need to look at. Not simply 'bigger is worse'.
That's the entire point of the article. It isn't a complaint about the size of websites. It's a complaint about the ratio of size to usefulness. News websites in particular are getting bigger, but they're not getting better.
[1] https://httparchive.org/reports/state-of-the-web?start=earli...