2 ms·

Honestly I don't get the point of edge. Do people really care whether their website loads in 50ms vs 300ms?

by matesz 4y ago

maxmcd 4y ago
Sure it's on a bit of a hype wave at the moment, but yes, most internet users are mobile users that don't live in major metropolitan areas with robust internet infrastructure? I think at least having the option to serve some things at the edge can dramatically improve the browsing experience for those users (and many others!).
mirzap 4y ago
Of course they care. It directly impacts on conversion rates. I'm still stunned with simple fact that most people think 100ms doesn't make a difference (for their business). https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/how-website-speed-affects-conversion-rates/ https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/how-website-speed-...
- matesz 4y ago
  Can't they just cache let's say these 1000 marketing, sales and customer support pages into cdn then?
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    It applies to applications as well. My general beliefs on the topic: most improvements that people come up with don't move the needle for the business. Doing the same thing but a little better will sometimes have an impact, generally not. The exception to this is speed. Speed improvements deliver more consistently than anything else, and they keep delivering as you improve. Improving speed is the surest bet you can make.
- billythemaniam 4y ago
  While it matters, +-100ms doesn't matter in the vast majority of web use cases. There is even such a thing as too fast. If a user doesn't notice the page updated due to speed, that is also a poor experience. 300ms would actually feel incredibly fast to most web users for most websites. Less than 1 second is a good guideline for page load though as shown by your link.
  - jamil7 4y ago
    > There is even such a thing as too fast. If a user doesn't notice the page updated due to speed, that is also a poor experience. If you're relying on your app's execution time to demonstrate this to a user, then you have poor UX. Instant changes and updates have been the norm in mobile apps forever and optimistic UI is becoming pretty standard on the web too, see Linear for example.
VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
One request being 50ms or 300ms probably doesn't really matter. But 10,000 requests _per second_ being 50 or 300ms matters a lot
vidarh 4y ago
To take a different tack then the other two (at time of writing) replies to this: It's not just at the edge. Being able to add databases with wild abandon and just provide a key to an S3 compatible bucket to replicate it to, and not have to worry about any server setup or replication is appealing whether or not your setup is otherwise centralised. For some setups you do want to share data across user accounts, but for others, isolation along customer or individual user boundaries is not just fine but an advantage (no accidentally writing a query that returns too much data). And then, it's a plus if having a million databases and selectively spread them out over your servers is trivial.

Honestly I don't get the point of edge. Do people really care whether their website loads in 50ms vs 300ms?

by matesz 4y ago

Honestly I don't get the point of edge. Do people really care whether their website loads in 50ms vs 300ms?

Sure it's on a bit of a hype wave at the moment, but yes, most internet users are mobile users that don't live in major metropolitan areas with robust internet infrastructure? I think at least having the option to serve some things at the edge can dramatically improve the browsing experience for those users (and many others!).

mirzap 4y ago

Of course they care. It directly impacts on conversion rates. I'm still stunned with simple fact that most people think 100ms doesn't make a difference (for their business). https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/how-website-speed-affects-conversion-rates/ https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/how-website-speed-...

matesz 4y ago
Can't they just cache let's say these 1000 marketing, sales and customer support pages into cdn then?
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  It applies to applications as well. My general beliefs on the topic: most improvements that people come up with don't move the needle for the business. Doing the same thing but a little better will sometimes have an impact, generally not. The exception to this is speed. Speed improvements deliver more consistently than anything else, and they keep delivering as you improve. Improving speed is the surest bet you can make.
billythemaniam 4y ago
While it matters, +-100ms doesn't matter in the vast majority of web use cases. There is even such a thing as too fast. If a user doesn't notice the page updated due to speed, that is also a poor experience. 300ms would actually feel incredibly fast to most web users for most websites. Less than 1 second is a good guideline for page load though as shown by your link.
- jamil7 4y ago
  > There is even such a thing as too fast. If a user doesn't notice the page updated due to speed, that is also a poor experience. If you're relying on your app's execution time to demonstrate this to a user, then you have poor UX. Instant changes and updates have been the norm in mobile apps forever and optimistic UI is becoming pretty standard on the web too, see Linear for example.

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago

One request being 50ms or 300ms probably doesn't really matter. But 10,000 requests _per second_ being 50 or 300ms matters a lot

vidarh 4y ago

To take a different tack then the other two (at time of writing) replies to this: It's not just at the edge. Being able to add databases with wild abandon and just provide a key to an S3 compatible bucket to replicate it to, and not have to worry about any server setup or replication is appealing whether or not your setup is otherwise centralised. For some setups you do want to share data across user accounts, but for others, isolation along customer or individual user boundaries is not just fine but an advantage (no accidentally writing a query that returns too much data). And then, it's a plus if having a million databases and selectively spread them out over your servers is trivial.