Wastes space on the screen (especially if you have to scroll the screen to read it, or if you want to print it out and you want to save paper and ink), might so

Wastes space on the screen (especially if you have to scroll the screen to read it, or if you want to print it out and you want to save paper and ink), might sometimes make it more difficult to understand (in case you do not know what is the significance of the picture), and can use up power and disk space, etc. However, sometimes it might help if you can specify which ones are merely for decoration and what is what, that you can easily disable them and to avoid downloading them. (Even if a picture is meant to be a significant part of the document because it is what it is about, then you still might not want to download it right away although it would help to display a placeholder (e.g. a hyperlink) in that case.)