Why Is The Modern Web So Bloated?

noellarkin

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I just completed a web check-in for a flight. The site was taking a while to load, so I checked out the network tab to see what HTTP requests were being made. Its a mess - - for example, the website has no social features whatsoever, it's a payment processing subdomain, and it seems to be phoning home to facebook and twitter's ad tracking domains, a bunch of other trackers, both google analytics and matomo, and a cartload of JS for good measure.

So much of the internet is like this these days. I'm not even a dev, I just know enough to be able to make client websites, and none of my sites have more than the bare minimum needed to get the job done. I'm assuming the the developers designing and maintaining these websites are more competent than I, so why don't they follow best practices?

I've come across many very experienced devs on this forum, so I'm curious: what mindset shifts or hiring practices in web development have contributed to the current state of affairs?
 
what mindset shifts or hiring practices in web development have contributed to the current state of affairs?
The reason the modern web is bloated is the same as that of why desktop apps were bloated in the early 2000s (still are), Basically:

- webapps trying to do too much at once (just like desktop apps)

- Too many "redundant requirements" by Upper-management.

- webapps getting ubiquitous, which brings demand for even low-skilled web Devs, which in turn results in dev agencies shipping bloated webapps.
Webapps today have turned into the same clusterfuck that java apps were back in the day.

Here's how the dev workflow for the website you visited would have gone:

- Client raises requirement of analytics to track conversion of traffic coming from their social channels.

- Team Lead of devteam asks what social their traffic comes from (without doing their research and not knowing that most analytics software can track all social channels)

- Client says Twitter and Facebook.
- Devteam includes Twitter and Facebook trackers.

- Client then asks for Google Analytics.
- DevTeam then includes Google analytics integration to satisfy the client :facepalm:

- Client realises they didn't pay for GDPR compliance and GA would cause issues. Asks team for a solution.


- Devteam then adds Matomo without removing GA ( :facepalm: , just GA or Matomo would've been enough)

You see, this monkeypatching and "shipping asap" attitude is the reason.
Accompanied by the general dependency hell and other poor dev practices like hogging the main thread for network calls, not trying to remove or cache resources, general lack of awareness about low bandwidth situations or performance tests etc

The problem is, as certain software becomes ubiquitous. Clients will want to pay less and less for it. Poor pay, brings junior/low-skilled Devs who don't care about architecture or performance. They just want to keep the client happy by shipping as soon as possible and monkey-patching.
 
what mindset shifts or hiring practices in web development have contributed to the current state of affairs?

Wordpress is the culprit and a few other that rely only on JavaScript, which takes time computing on users' machine. Devs have to be really good idiots to think that 10 MB JavaScript code is the best idea to load 10 lines of text.
 
More often than not, it’s the product owner who decides that. :(

I doubt. Probably the fault is the budget and timeframe the product owner wants and also coders greed. Why a coder should build a website in 3 months, when he can do it in 1 hour with 100 plugins and JavaScript files for the same amount of cash?
 
I doubt. Probably the fault is the budget and timeframe the product owner wants and also coders greed. Why a coder should build a website in 3 months, when he can do it in 1 hour with 100 plugins and JavaScript files for the same amount of cash?
Oh yeah for sure. That’s true as well.

I was talking about building a sleek looking and awesome product, and then the owner be like.. Pls add these bloatware to the html ser. ok bye, i go shopping now.. :p
 
jQuery was the first to contribute to this mess.
Atleast back in the jQuery days, websites didn't ship as single page applications which is a one huge monolith.

And these monoliths require different optimisation strategies. Things like code splitting and network-sensitive content. Most devs that clients pay for today are either cheap outsourced engineers or junior devs who have no clue about these. These folks either see optimisation and performance as an "afterthought" or are not aware about it at all.

And then, some of this stuff is just a necessity of the times. You can't have a website in 2022 that looks like it's from the 90s.

And to have a modern website, you need a lot of css. Clients also demands gimmicks like animations, svg icons for everything, and sometimes even 3d Assets. All of this add to the bulk.

I personally feel OP shouldn't generalize all modern websites to be bloated.

I get it that the in example they cited, it was indeed stupid to have so many network calls. But then, it's 2022. All these network calls would count for less than 500kb in bandiwdth. And i don't think that's too much to ask for in this day and age.
 
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