[luckylion]

And they do, even if it's not a conscious decision. Most large scale experiments see bounce rate increase and revenue decrease with page load time. More load time because "it's easier to develop this way and it saves developer time, which is expensive" means more bounces and less sales.

Of course, that only matters at scale. If your site never takes off, optimizing for user experience (instead of developer experience) wouldn't have paid off. On the other hand, maybe putting your users second lowers the chance of it being well received.