4 ms·

I don't think that web is slow, unless you're running seriously underpowered computer. That's not the case for me. Web is not as fast as it could be. And that's

I don't think that web is slow, unless you're running seriously underpowered computer. That's not the case for me. Web is not as fast as it could be. And that's because customer does not want to pay for fastest website in the world. It should be fast enough and then features matter. You can spend year making your website load in 0.1 second while your competitor will implement important features and his 2-second loading website will win. And that's not really about web. It's about software in general. Discord launches in 8 seconds. Ventrillo launches in 1 second. But people will use Discord, because 8 seconds is not that bad and then features matter. And that's not really about modern software, as old software was slow as well. Also it was very buggy. Windows 98 used to BSOD here and there, so you had a routine to press "Save" button every few minutes and keep few copies just in case. Emacs was expanded to "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping". There's some old software which survived till today and it's now wicked fast, because it was made for old hardware. But people still prefer to move on to new software, because of features or just shiny new design.

runawaybottle 6y ago
All of that is true until it isn’t. Ask all the stock trading apps how Robinhood out-UXed them. When the out-user-experienceing happens, you pretty much will lose your entire business if you don’t undertake a paradigm shift. Stay ahead of the curve a bit.
- jackson1442 6y ago
  I think it could be argued that Robinhood’s UX is a sort of feature on its own. Stock trading isn’t simple by any means, and Robinhood found a way to make it really approachable for everyone and that’s almost admirable. Everything else about their business sucks, but that one piece was truly impressive.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    I’ve echoed this point a few times too. There’s a lot of apps that can barely figure out a todo-list (every glorified note take app/PM software), and here’s a company that boiled down Derivatives (with a capital D) trading in about two or three screens. It’s an absolute masterclass.
    - jackson1442 6y ago
      I’m personally impressed by how terrible the other trading apps are comparatively. Obviously they have more features etc but you’d think Vanguard & co. would try to follow in their footsteps. Vanguard’s beta app, Beacon, is a step in the right direction, but I can already tell it won’t even compete with Robinhood’s design.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  I thought robinhood got popular because they marketed the shit out of comission free trading for the little guy.
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  I think it was more like ‘here is a free margin account with options enabled and no commission fees’ went alot further than the UI. Also, the UX was implicated as the cause of a suicide, so that is not good.
Retric 6y ago
Most software I use wasn’t written from scratch in the last 10 years. It’s new only in that of people are still maintaining it, but I don’t get to decide what features I want it’s an all or nothing buffet. On a new an powerful computer most of the web is dog slow. There is no reason most websites should take more than 1/10th of a second from click to fully rendered. Anything past that is simply wasting my time.
flohofwoe 6y ago
reddit.com is a slow and flickering mess even on my gaming PC. It's the worst example that comes to mind though. But if that same PC can run incredibly complex open world games while simulating (for instance) an aircraft complete with the cockpit and displays driven by emulated onboard computers at 60+ fps, it's not too much to ask the same from a webpage that "just" needs to do text layout and display a couple of images. Also: it's considerably faster and cheaper to build a fast webpage than to build a slow webpage. I'm quite sure the "new Reddit" was a lot more expensive to build than the "old Reddit".
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  I am curious what the traffic breakdown for reddit is via the ‘old’ subdomain compared to the ‘www’ subdomain? Personally I will navigate away from the new site and only use the old domain.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  It's not slow for me. Took 2 seconds to show me content.
  - flohofwoe 6y ago
    2 seconds is pretty slow to show a webpage though (assuming your not on a 90's analog modem connection). Also try scrolling, navigating, clicking on links etc... It feels like moving through molasses.
hypermachine 6y ago
The hardest thing is making things pretty and flexible while maintaining ease of development. Newer UI kits like Flutter are basically architected like game engines. This is a challenge that UI framework designers will have to confront if they want more native alternatives to electron. Whatever replaces electron must at the very least be similarly easy to use, accessible to many languages and runtimes, and trivial to style with non-copyleft usage license.

runawaybottle 6y ago

All of that is true until it isn’t. Ask all the stock trading apps how Robinhood out-UXed them. When the out-user-experienceing happens, you pretty much will lose your entire business if you don’t undertake a paradigm shift. Stay ahead of the curve a bit.

jackson1442 6y ago
I think it could be argued that Robinhood’s UX is a sort of feature on its own. Stock trading isn’t simple by any means, and Robinhood found a way to make it really approachable for everyone and that’s almost admirable. Everything else about their business sucks, but that one piece was truly impressive.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I’ve echoed this point a few times too. There’s a lot of apps that can barely figure out a todo-list (every glorified note take app/PM software), and here’s a company that boiled down Derivatives (with a capital D) trading in about two or three screens. It’s an absolute masterclass.
  - jackson1442 6y ago
    I’m personally impressed by how terrible the other trading apps are comparatively. Obviously they have more features etc but you’d think Vanguard & co. would try to follow in their footsteps. Vanguard’s beta app, Beacon, is a step in the right direction, but I can already tell it won’t even compete with Robinhood’s design.
reader_mode 6y ago
I thought robinhood got popular because they marketed the shit out of comission free trading for the little guy.
daniellarusso 6y ago
I think it was more like ‘here is a free margin account with options enabled and no commission fees’ went alot further than the UI. Also, the UX was implicated as the cause of a suicide, so that is not good.

Retric 6y ago

Most software I use wasn’t written from scratch in the last 10 years. It’s new only in that of people are still maintaining it, but I don’t get to decide what features I want it’s an all or nothing buffet. On a new an powerful computer most of the web is dog slow. There is no reason most websites should take more than 1/10th of a second from click to fully rendered. Anything past that is simply wasting my time.

flohofwoe 6y ago

reddit.com is a slow and flickering mess even on my gaming PC. It's the worst example that comes to mind though. But if that same PC can run incredibly complex open world games while simulating (for instance) an aircraft complete with the cockpit and displays driven by emulated onboard computers at 60+ fps, it's not too much to ask the same from a webpage that "just" needs to do text layout and display a couple of images. Also: it's considerably faster and cheaper to build a fast webpage than to build a slow webpage. I'm quite sure the "new Reddit" was a lot more expensive to build than the "old Reddit".

daniellarusso 6y ago
I am curious what the traffic breakdown for reddit is via the ‘old’ subdomain compared to the ‘www’ subdomain? Personally I will navigate away from the new site and only use the old domain.
vbezhenar 6y ago
It's not slow for me. Took 2 seconds to show me content.
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  2 seconds is pretty slow to show a webpage though (assuming your not on a 90's analog modem connection). Also try scrolling, navigating, clicking on links etc... It feels like moving through molasses.

hypermachine 6y ago

The hardest thing is making things pretty and flexible while maintaining ease of development. Newer UI kits like Flutter are basically architected like game engines. This is a challenge that UI framework designers will have to confront if they want more native alternatives to electron. Whatever replaces electron must at the very least be similarly easy to use, accessible to many languages and runtimes, and trivial to style with non-copyleft usage license.