4 ms·

10MB, 12MB, … Compare it to people who really care about performance — Pornhub, 1.4 MB Porn was always actual web hi-tech with good engineering, not these jok

by wruza 3y ago

10MB, 12MB, … Compare it to people who really care about performance — Pornhub, 1.4 MB Porn was always actual web hi-tech with good engineering, not these joke-level “tech” giants. Can’t remember a single time they’d screw up basic ui/ux, content delivery or common sense.

thakoppno 3y ago
> Can’t remember a single time they’d screw up basic ui/ux, content delivery or common sense. There are many, many cases of porn websites breaking the law.
- yomly 3y ago
  Yes - writing PHP in 2024 is a crime that we should hold PH accountable for.
  - goatlover 3y ago
    Modern PHP is a pretty good language. Not my favorite, but it's not antiquated. And there's tons of websites built with it (granted Wordpress and Drupal are the majority of them).
devjab 3y ago
I never really understood why SPAs became so popular on the web. It’s like we suddenly and collectively became afraid of the page reload on websites just because it’s not a wanted behaviour in actual web applications. I have worked with enterprise applications for two decades, and with some that were build before I was born. And I think the React has been the absolute best frontend for these systems compared to everything that came before. You’re free to insert Angular/Vue/whatever by the way. But these are designed to replace all the various horrible client/server UIs that came before. For a web-page that’s hardly necessary unless you’re g-mail, Facebook or similar, where you need the interactive and live content updates because of how these products work. But for something like pornhub? Well PHP serves them just fine, and this is true for most web sites really. Just look at HN and how many people still vastly prefer the old.reddit.com site to their modern SPA. Hell, many people still would probably still prefer an old.Facebook to the newer much slower version.
- ralusek 3y ago
  I love SPAs. I love making them, and I love using them. The thing is, they have to be for applications. When I'm using an application, I am willing to eat a slower initial load time. Everything after that is faster, smoother, more dynamic, more responsive.
  - ihateolives 3y ago
    > Everything after that is faster, smoother, more dynamic, more responsive. IF and only IF you have at least med- to high-end computer and smartphone. If you have low-end hardware you first have to wait for that 20MB to load AND get to use slow and choppy app afterwards. Worst of both worlds, but hey, it's built according to modern standards!
- diggan 3y ago
  > But for something like pornhub? Well PHP serves them just fine, Kind of fun to make this argument for Pornhub when visiting their website with JavaScript disabled just seems to render a blank page :) > how many people still vastly prefer the old.reddit.com site to their modern SPA Also a fun argument, the times I've seen analytics on it, old.reddit.com seems to hover around/below 10% of the visitors to subs. But I bet this varies a lot by the subreddit.
  - nickserv 3y ago
    There might be a legal requirement for them to make sure you accept the "I'm 18" dialog before displaying anything.
    - diggan 3y ago
      Been possible to do without JavaScript before, and is still possible today :) Where there is a will, there is a way. I'd still argue Pornhub is a bad example for the point parent was making.
  - smsm42 3y ago
    > visiting their website with JavaScript disabled just seems to render a blank page :) Average people don't disable Javascript. So they predictably don't spend much time trying to make the site work for people who aren't their core audience.
kmlx 3y ago
i worked in that field. one of the main reasons adult entertainment is optimised so heavily is because lots of users are from countries with poor internet. countless hours spent on optimising video delivery, live broadcasts (using flash back in the day, and webrtc today), web page sizes... the works.
npteljes 3y ago
>Porn was always actual web hi-tech with good engineering, not these joke-level “tech” giants. Can’t remember a single time they’d screw up basic ui/ux, content delivery or common sense. Well, I do remember the myriad of shady advertisement tactics that porn sites use(d), like popups, popunders, fake content leading to other similar aggregation sites, opening partner website instead of content, poisoning the SEO results as much as they can, and so on. Porn is not the tech driver people make it up to be, even the popular urban legend around the Betamax vs VHS is untrue, and so is that they drive internet innovation. There is a handful of players who engineer a high quality product, but it's hardly representative to the industry as a whole. Many others create link farms, dummy content, clone websites, false advertisement, gaming the search results, and so on. Porn is in high demand, it's a busy scene, and so, many things happen related to it, and that's about it. The current state of snappy top-level results is I think the result of competition. If one site's UX is shitty, I think the majority of the viewers would just leave for the next one, as there is a deluge of free porn on the internet. So, the sites actually have to optimize for retention. These other websites have different incentives, so the optimized state is different too. The user is, of course, important, but if they also have shareholders, content providers, exclusive business deals, monopoly, then they don't have to optimize for user experience that much.
- wruza 3y ago
  I generally agree and understand. The reasoning is fine. But comments like this make me somewhere between sad and contemptuous towards the field. This neutral explanation supports the baseline that no professional can vocalize anywhere and retain their face. I'm talking youtube focus & arrows issues here, not rocket science. Container alignment issues [1], scrolling issues [2], cosmic levels of bloat [$subj], you name it. Absolutely trivial things you can't screw up if you're at all hireable. It's not "unoptimized", it's distilled personal/group incompetence of those who ought to be the best. That I cannot respect. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabDCV4ccQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabDCV4ccQs -- scroll to comments and/or switch between default/theater mode if not immediately obvious [2] half of the internet, especially ux blogs
  - npteljes 3y ago
dontupvoteme 3y ago
Youtube also ripped off their "interesting parts of the video" bit entirely.
kcrwfrd_ 3y ago
Looks like us at playboy.com/app have Pornhub beat, with our 1.1 MB (when authenticated—when not, it's 993 kB).
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Do you work on it? Can I send you a bug list? :D
  - kcrwfrd_ 3y ago
    Yes I’m on the engineering team, and I would absolutely love any bug reports. You can check my profile for a way to reach me.

by wruza 3y ago

thakoppno 3y ago

> Can’t remember a single time they’d screw up basic ui/ux, content delivery or common sense. There are many, many cases of porn websites breaking the law.

yomly 3y ago
Yes - writing PHP in 2024 is a crime that we should hold PH accountable for.
- goatlover 3y ago
  Modern PHP is a pretty good language. Not my favorite, but it's not antiquated. And there's tons of websites built with it (granted Wordpress and Drupal are the majority of them).

devjab 3y ago

I never really understood why SPAs became so popular on the web. It’s like we suddenly and collectively became afraid of the page reload on websites just because it’s not a wanted behaviour in actual web applications. I have worked with enterprise applications for two decades, and with some that were build before I was born. And I think the React has been the absolute best frontend for these systems compared to everything that came before. You’re free to insert Angular/Vue/whatever by the way. But these are designed to replace all the various horrible client/server UIs that came before. For a web-page that’s hardly necessary unless you’re g-mail, Facebook or similar, where you need the interactive and live content updates because of how these products work. But for something like pornhub? Well PHP serves them just fine, and this is true for most web sites really. Just look at HN and how many people still vastly prefer the old.reddit.com site to their modern SPA. Hell, many people still would probably still prefer an old.Facebook to the newer much slower version.

ralusek 3y ago
I love SPAs. I love making them, and I love using them. The thing is, they have to be for applications. When I'm using an application, I am willing to eat a slower initial load time. Everything after that is faster, smoother, more dynamic, more responsive.
- ihateolives 3y ago
  > Everything after that is faster, smoother, more dynamic, more responsive. IF and only IF you have at least med- to high-end computer and smartphone. If you have low-end hardware you first have to wait for that 20MB to load AND get to use slow and choppy app afterwards. Worst of both worlds, but hey, it's built according to modern standards!
diggan 3y ago
> But for something like pornhub? Well PHP serves them just fine, Kind of fun to make this argument for Pornhub when visiting their website with JavaScript disabled just seems to render a blank page :) > how many people still vastly prefer the old.reddit.com site to their modern SPA Also a fun argument, the times I've seen analytics on it, old.reddit.com seems to hover around/below 10% of the visitors to subs. But I bet this varies a lot by the subreddit.
- nickserv 3y ago
  There might be a legal requirement for them to make sure you accept the "I'm 18" dialog before displaying anything.
  - diggan 3y ago
    Been possible to do without JavaScript before, and is still possible today :) Where there is a will, there is a way. I'd still argue Pornhub is a bad example for the point parent was making.
- smsm42 3y ago
  > visiting their website with JavaScript disabled just seems to render a blank page :) Average people don't disable Javascript. So they predictably don't spend much time trying to make the site work for people who aren't their core audience.

kmlx 3y ago

i worked in that field. one of the main reasons adult entertainment is optimised so heavily is because lots of users are from countries with poor internet. countless hours spent on optimising video delivery, live broadcasts (using flash back in the day, and webrtc today), web page sizes... the works.

npteljes 3y ago

>Porn was always actual web hi-tech with good engineering, not these joke-level “tech” giants. Can’t remember a single time they’d screw up basic ui/ux, content delivery or common sense. Well, I do remember the myriad of shady advertisement tactics that porn sites use(d), like popups, popunders, fake content leading to other similar aggregation sites, opening partner website instead of content, poisoning the SEO results as much as they can, and so on. Porn is not the tech driver people make it up to be, even the popular urban legend around the Betamax vs VHS is untrue, and so is that they drive internet innovation. There is a handful of players who engineer a high quality product, but it's hardly representative to the industry as a whole. Many others create link farms, dummy content, clone websites, false advertisement, gaming the search results, and so on. Porn is in high demand, it's a busy scene, and so, many things happen related to it, and that's about it. The current state of snappy top-level results is I think the result of competition. If one site's UX is shitty, I think the majority of the viewers would just leave for the next one, as there is a deluge of free porn on the internet. So, the sites actually have to optimize for retention. These other websites have different incentives, so the optimized state is different too. The user is, of course, important, but if they also have shareholders, content providers, exclusive business deals, monopoly, then they don't have to optimize for user experience that much.

wruza 3y ago
I generally agree and understand. The reasoning is fine. But comments like this make me somewhere between sad and contemptuous towards the field. This neutral explanation supports the baseline that no professional can vocalize anywhere and retain their face. I'm talking youtube focus & arrows issues here, not rocket science. Container alignment issues [1], scrolling issues [2], cosmic levels of bloat [$subj], you name it. Absolutely trivial things you can't screw up if you're at all hireable. It's not "unoptimized", it's distilled personal/group incompetence of those who ought to be the best. That I cannot respect. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabDCV4ccQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabDCV4ccQs -- scroll to comments and/or switch between default/theater mode if not immediately obvious [2] half of the internet, especially ux blogs
- npteljes 3y ago

dontupvoteme 3y ago

Youtube also ripped off their "interesting parts of the video" bit entirely.

kcrwfrd_ 3y ago

Looks like us at playboy.com/app have Pornhub beat, with our 1.1 MB (when authenticated—when not, it's 993 kB).

qingcharles 3y ago
Do you work on it? Can I send you a bug list? :D
- kcrwfrd_ 3y ago
  Yes I’m on the engineering team, and I would absolutely love any bug reports. You can check my profile for a way to reach me.