3 ms·

(2012) Discussed in 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957992 And in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/

by jwilk 8y ago

(2012) Discussed in 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957992 And in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393930

mrighele 8y ago
The first comment in the 2012 discussion looks a bit funny now: > [...] I am pretty sure that graphing this out and we find the end of the web occurs sometime in 2018 when page designers and their bosses and engineers and marketing pukes have so larded down pages that the net runs out of available bandwidth and any page takes 4:33 to load.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  A random newspaper or magazine article takes 2 to 3 minutes to load for me nowadays. Those 4 aren't very far away. Most of the time seems to be waiting for servers to respond, what probably means the bottleneck is on ad-network CPUs. Of course, at the normal web (outside of those "professional communicators" pages) things are much better.
  - Yetanfou 8y ago
    > Most of the time seems to be waiting for servers to respond, what probably means the bottleneck is on ad-network CPUs. A problem easily avoided by never making any requests to those servers in the first place. Block them at the point of ingress to your network (your router at home), on the clients (using /etc/hosts or equivalent) and by using blocking software in your browsers (uBlock et al). No ads, no problems. It will invariably also mean no access to some sites which either detect ad blockers (...which can be defused using ad-blocker detectors, this is a bit of an arms race) or depend on resources from ad servers (rare for now). You can either make exceptions for those sites or just live without them.
A2017U1 8y ago
It's quite disheartening to ponder solutions to this stuff and yet see that discussion 6 years ago from far more capable people. Perhaps the vast majority of Internet consumers is actually ok with the status quo.
- jim-jim-jim 8y ago
  I don't think they're okay with it; they just can't pinpoint the problem, and resign themselves to the "fact" that using a computer is an inherently slow and unreliable experience, since it's been that way for as long as they can remember. Older and non-technical people are just as vexed by bloated pages as anybody else, but without the language to describe the problem, they seem more likely to blame the reliability of their connection or even the age of their hardware rather than the poor design choices that web authors make. I've saved multiple people from replacing their "old" phones by showing them how to toggle javascript.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Or "viruses". This is what I usually hear from my non-tech family & friends. "Could you take a look at my computer? It's acting slow, I probably have some viruses." Turns out it's not viruses, it's ever increasing website bloat that very quickly renders reasonable machines unusable. A good portion of it can be eliminated by installing an ad blocker, but this still makes people throw away perfectly good machines, because companies on the web don't care about user experience.
- iguy 8y ago
  More cynically, the vast majority of Internet customers are OK with it. Given the choice between having the consumer wait 10 more seconds for the page, vs. not knowing whether the ad company screwed them / leaving 1c on the table in data not collected & sold... they'll happily choose to waste someone else's time, every time.

by jwilk 8y ago

mrighele 8y ago

The first comment in the 2012 discussion looks a bit funny now: > [...] I am pretty sure that graphing this out and we find the end of the web occurs sometime in 2018 when page designers and their bosses and engineers and marketing pukes have so larded down pages that the net runs out of available bandwidth and any page takes 4:33 to load.

marcosdumay 8y ago
A random newspaper or magazine article takes 2 to 3 minutes to load for me nowadays. Those 4 aren't very far away. Most of the time seems to be waiting for servers to respond, what probably means the bottleneck is on ad-network CPUs. Of course, at the normal web (outside of those "professional communicators" pages) things are much better.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  > Most of the time seems to be waiting for servers to respond, what probably means the bottleneck is on ad-network CPUs. A problem easily avoided by never making any requests to those servers in the first place. Block them at the point of ingress to your network (your router at home), on the clients (using /etc/hosts or equivalent) and by using blocking software in your browsers (uBlock et al). No ads, no problems. It will invariably also mean no access to some sites which either detect ad blockers (...which can be defused using ad-blocker detectors, this is a bit of an arms race) or depend on resources from ad servers (rare for now). You can either make exceptions for those sites or just live without them.

A2017U1 8y ago

It's quite disheartening to ponder solutions to this stuff and yet see that discussion 6 years ago from far more capable people. Perhaps the vast majority of Internet consumers is actually ok with the status quo.

jim-jim-jim 8y ago
I don't think they're okay with it; they just can't pinpoint the problem, and resign themselves to the "fact" that using a computer is an inherently slow and unreliable experience, since it's been that way for as long as they can remember. Older and non-technical people are just as vexed by bloated pages as anybody else, but without the language to describe the problem, they seem more likely to blame the reliability of their connection or even the age of their hardware rather than the poor design choices that web authors make. I've saved multiple people from replacing their "old" phones by showing them how to toggle javascript.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Or "viruses". This is what I usually hear from my non-tech family & friends. "Could you take a look at my computer? It's acting slow, I probably have some viruses." Turns out it's not viruses, it's ever increasing website bloat that very quickly renders reasonable machines unusable. A good portion of it can be eliminated by installing an ad blocker, but this still makes people throw away perfectly good machines, because companies on the web don't care about user experience.
iguy 8y ago
More cynically, the vast majority of Internet customers are OK with it. Given the choice between having the consumer wait 10 more seconds for the page, vs. not knowing whether the ad company screwed them / leaving 1c on the table in data not collected & sold... they'll happily choose to waste someone else's time, every time.