Infrequently Noted

Alex Russell on browsers, standards, and the process of progress.

The Performance Inequality Gap, 2023

To serve users at the global P75 of devices and networks, we can now afford ~150KiB of HTML/CSS/fonts and ~300-350KiB of JavaScript (gzipped). This is a slight upgrade on last year's budgets, thanks to device and network improvements. Meanwhile, web developers continue to send more script than is reasonable for 80+% of the world's users, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. This is an ethical crisis for frontend. Meanwhile, the most popular tools and frameworks remain in stubborn denial, but reality is not moved by ignoring it: when digital is the default, slow is exclusionary.

Newer Posts: 2023/02

Older Posts : 2022/06