[Taywee]

With that complex example, I can get a B&W 4-color dithered png down to 91K and an 8-color down to 131K. The Color Simple one goes down to 142K with a 16-color dithered palette. I'm confused why you'd even compare the dithered JPGs, because that's self-contradictory, or why your dithered PNGs ended up so big. Did you forget to turn it into an indexed PNG?

If you're dithering, you want a lossless format that can used indexed colors. Webp also does better in this if you keep it in lossless mode. My last 16-color simple example goes down to 128K when converted to a lossless indexed webp.

I don't think this article does all the sufficient legwork to come to the conclusion it does. I agree that dithering isn't a be-all or end-all compression technique, but it's not as useless as the article makes it seem.