The prevalence of the animated GIF is an eloquent statement about the current video encoding mess. While the typical small video clip today, encoded in a fancy

The prevalence of the animated GIF is an eloquent statement about the current video encoding mess. While the typical small video clip today, encoded in a fancy new standard, is orders of magnitudes smaller that the JS+CSS+HTML site containing it, we use GIFs because nobody has any idea who is able to see the content is using a modern endoder.