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Maybe moving the entire application to the browser/cloud wasn't the best idea for a large number of use cases? Video streaming, sure, but we're already able to

Maybe moving the entire application to the browser/cloud wasn't the best idea for a large number of use cases? Video streaming, sure, but we're already able to stream 4K video over a 25Mbit line. With modern internet connections being 200Mbit to 1Gbit, I don't see that we need the bandwidth in private homes. Maybe for video conferencing in large companies, but that also doesn't need to be 4K. The underlying internet protocols are old, so there's no harm in assessing if they've outlived their usefulness. However, we should also consider in web applications and "always connected" is truly the best solution for our day to day application needs.

kuschku 2y ago
> With modern internet connections being 200Mbit to 1Gbit, I don't see that we need the bandwidth in private homes Private connections tend to be asymmetrical. In some cases, e.g. old DOCSIS versions, that used to be due to technical necessity. Private connections tend to be unstable, the bandwidth fluctuates quite a bit. Depending on country, the actually guaranteed bandwidth is somewhere between half of what's on the sticker, to nothing at all. Private connections are usually used by families, with multiple people using it at the same time. In recent years, you might have 3+ family members in a video call at the same time. So if you're paying for a 1000/50 line (as is common with DOCSIS deployments), what you're actually getting is usually a 400/20 line that sometimes achieves more. And those 20Mbps upload are now split between multiple people. At the same time, you're absolutely right – Gigabit is enough for most people. Download speeds are enough for quite a while. We should instead be increasing upload speeds and deploying FTTH and IPv6 everywhere to reduce the latency.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  This is a great post. I often forget that home Internet connections are frequently shared between many people. This bit: > IPv6 everywhere to reduce the latency I am not an expert on IPv4 vs IPv6. Teach me: How will migrating to IPv6 reduce latency? As I understand, a lot of home Internet connections are always effectively IPv6 via CarrierNAT. (Am I wrong? Or not relevant to your point?)
  - kuschku 2y ago
    IPv4 routing is more complicated, especially with multiple levels of NAT applied. Google has measured to most customers about 20ms less latency on IPv6 than on IPv4, according to their IPv6 report.
    - simoncion 2y ago
      > Google has measured to most customers about 20ms less latency on IPv6 than on IPv4, according to their IPv6 report. I've run that comparison across four ISPs and never seen any significant difference in latency... not once in the decades I've had "dual stack" service. I imagine that Google is getting confounded by folks with godawful middle/"security"ware that is too stupid to know how to handle IPv6 traffic and just passes it through.
throwaway2037 2y ago
Overall, I like your post very much. > but that also doesn't need to be 4K. Here, I would say "need" is a strong term. Surely, you are correct at the most basic level, but if the bandwidth exists, then some streaming platforms will use it. Deeper question: Is there any practical use case for Internet connections about 1Gbit? I struggle to think of any. Yes, I can understand that people may wish to reduce latency, but I don't think home users need any more bandwidth at this point. I am astonished when I read about 10Gbit home Internet access in Switzerland, Japan, and Korea. Zero trolling: Can you help me to better understand your last sentence? > However, we should also consider in web applications and "always connected" is truly the best solution for our day to day application needs. I cannot tell if this is written with sarcasm. Let me ask more directly: Do you think it is a good design for our modern apps to always be connected or not? Honestly, I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but I am interested to hear your opinion.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  Generally speaking I think we should aim for offline first, always. Obvious things like Teams or Slack requires an internet connection to work, but assuming a working internet connection shouldn't even be a requirement for a web browser. I think it is bad design to expect a working internet connection, because in many places your can't expect bandwidth be cheap, or the connection to be stable. That's not to say that something like Google Docs (others seems to like it, but everyone in my company thinks it's awful) should be a thing, there's certainly value in the real time collaboration features, but it should be able to function without an internet connection. Last week someone was complaining about the S3 (sleep) feature on laptops, and one thing that came to my mind is that despite these being portable, we somehow expect them to be always connected to the internet. That just seems like a somewhat broken mindset to me.
  - surajrmal 2y ago
    Note that in deeper sleep states you typically see more aggressive limiting of what interrupts can take you out of the sleep state. Turning off network card interrupts is common.

kuschku 2y ago

> With modern internet connections being 200Mbit to 1Gbit, I don't see that we need the bandwidth in private homes Private connections tend to be asymmetrical. In some cases, e.g. old DOCSIS versions, that used to be due to technical necessity. Private connections tend to be unstable, the bandwidth fluctuates quite a bit. Depending on country, the actually guaranteed bandwidth is somewhere between half of what's on the sticker, to nothing at all. Private connections are usually used by families, with multiple people using it at the same time. In recent years, you might have 3+ family members in a video call at the same time. So if you're paying for a 1000/50 line (as is common with DOCSIS deployments), what you're actually getting is usually a 400/20 line that sometimes achieves more. And those 20Mbps upload are now split between multiple people. At the same time, you're absolutely right – Gigabit is enough for most people. Download speeds are enough for quite a while. We should instead be increasing upload speeds and deploying FTTH and IPv6 everywhere to reduce the latency.

throwaway2037 2y ago
This is a great post. I often forget that home Internet connections are frequently shared between many people. This bit: > IPv6 everywhere to reduce the latency I am not an expert on IPv4 vs IPv6. Teach me: How will migrating to IPv6 reduce latency? As I understand, a lot of home Internet connections are always effectively IPv6 via CarrierNAT. (Am I wrong? Or not relevant to your point?)
- kuschku 2y ago
  IPv4 routing is more complicated, especially with multiple levels of NAT applied. Google has measured to most customers about 20ms less latency on IPv6 than on IPv4, according to their IPv6 report.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    > Google has measured to most customers about 20ms less latency on IPv6 than on IPv4, according to their IPv6 report. I've run that comparison across four ISPs and never seen any significant difference in latency... not once in the decades I've had "dual stack" service. I imagine that Google is getting confounded by folks with godawful middle/"security"ware that is too stupid to know how to handle IPv6 traffic and just passes it through.

throwaway2037 2y ago

Overall, I like your post very much. > but that also doesn't need to be 4K. Here, I would say "need" is a strong term. Surely, you are correct at the most basic level, but if the bandwidth exists, then some streaming platforms will use it. Deeper question: Is there any practical use case for Internet connections about 1Gbit? I struggle to think of any. Yes, I can understand that people may wish to reduce latency, but I don't think home users need any more bandwidth at this point. I am astonished when I read about 10Gbit home Internet access in Switzerland, Japan, and Korea. Zero trolling: Can you help me to better understand your last sentence? > However, we should also consider in web applications and "always connected" is truly the best solution for our day to day application needs. I cannot tell if this is written with sarcasm. Let me ask more directly: Do you think it is a good design for our modern apps to always be connected or not? Honestly, I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but I am interested to hear your opinion.

mrweasel 2y ago
Generally speaking I think we should aim for offline first, always. Obvious things like Teams or Slack requires an internet connection to work, but assuming a working internet connection shouldn't even be a requirement for a web browser. I think it is bad design to expect a working internet connection, because in many places your can't expect bandwidth be cheap, or the connection to be stable. That's not to say that something like Google Docs (others seems to like it, but everyone in my company thinks it's awful) should be a thing, there's certainly value in the real time collaboration features, but it should be able to function without an internet connection. Last week someone was complaining about the S3 (sleep) feature on laptops, and one thing that came to my mind is that despite these being portable, we somehow expect them to be always connected to the internet. That just seems like a somewhat broken mindset to me.
- surajrmal 2y ago
  Note that in deeper sleep states you typically see more aggressive limiting of what interrupts can take you out of the sleep state. Turning off network card interrupts is common.