Packet sizes are increasing [1], which makes it more likely you'll go over the threshold quickly. It used to be far more common to write a hand written protocol

Packet sizes are increasing [1], which makes it more likely you'll go over the threshold quickly. It used to be far more common to write a hand written protocol to a TCP stream directly. Now the shitty IOT stuff is more likely to be throwing massive JSON packets down the wire. The original motivation (as I understand it, and recognizing I may well get corrected by John who is in this thread) were situations like a remote terminal where you'd be writing single bytes to a TCP stream. I just don't think much software is written that way any more, and if it is, it's probably latency sensitive. And 200ms is an eternity to wait if you happen to build a tiny packet for real time situations and this trips you up. I write multiplayer games for a living, and you're not always in control of the connection that you're passing data through. Usually, but not always. If Nagle is enabled you literally have to write padding data to the stream to make sure your packet is being sent like this poor soul [2]. Like I say, I'm happy to learn I'm wrong. Given the downvotes, people certainly seem to think I am, and I'm happy to believe they're experienced network engineers dumbfounded at my naïve stupidity. [1] Eg here's a ten year trend, and it's been thirty years since Nagle's introduction: https://www.caida.org/research/traffic-analysis/pkt_size_distribution/graphs.xml https://www.caida.org/research/traffic-analysis/pkt_size_dis... [2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19560163/sending-filler-data-on-websocket https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19560163/sending-filler-...