The Endless Cycle

The Endless Cycle: Websites Keep Getting Heavier as Internet Speeds Get Better

by Justin Pot 

Have you noticed the internet sometimes feels slower than ever, even as broadband speeds get faster?

There’s a reason for that: websites keep cramming more and more stuff onto pages. Here’s Nick Heer, writing for Pixel Envy:

The average internet connection in the United States is about six times as fast as it was just ten years ago, but instead of making it faster to browse the same types of websites, we’re simply occupying that extra bandwidth with more stuff.

Take that CNN article, for example. Here’s what it contained when I loaded it:

• Eleven web fonts, totalling 414 KB
• Four stylesheets, totalling 315 KB
• Twenty frames
• Twenty-nine XML HTTP requests, totalling about 500 KB
• Approximately one hundred scripts, totalling several megabytes—though it’s hard to pin down the number and actual size because some of the scripts are “beacons” that load after the page is technically finished downloading.

And then, after all that, there’s an auto-playing video, which you almost certainly didn’t want to see.

Most of this stuff doesn’t directly benefit you, the person visiting the site. Internet speeds got better, which allowed sites to cram more stuff in every page, which over time leads you to wanting a faster connection. It’s a cycle we’re all stuck in.

The first PC I owned, back in 2004, had 40 gigabytes of storage space. That seemed obscene at the time, and I couldn’t imagine filling it up. Now I’ve got multiple terabytes of drives around the house, and I’m contemplating getting more.

Which is just to say that people find something to do with increased capacity. In this case, it’s the websites you visit that found something to do with your extra bandwidth.

You can argue whether this is good, bad, or just one of those inevitable things that no one can do anything about. That’s fine. I just think we should all acknowledge it’s happening.