Most people will visit the page, scroll down a screen or two and leave it since they're not game programmers.
So, just speculating, he's no stranger to bandwidth spikes so perhaps the approach employed significantly saves on bandwidth during these periods, ultimately whether it's a conscious attempt to save or just a webdev quirk I don't know.
You got it. I implemented lazy-loading for the precise case you described: Save bandwidth from people that don't want to read the full article.
I tested it on Chrome, FireFox and Safari: I did not find it annoying....but maybe it is because I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone ready slowly and I have a DSL bandwidth...
So, just speculating, he's no stranger to bandwidth spikes so perhaps the approach employed significantly saves on bandwidth during these periods, ultimately whether it's a conscious attempt to save or just a webdev quirk I don't know.