[Nextgrid]

Let’s look at Twitter for a real-world example. The core concept of it hasn’t changed, it still just has to display a blurb of a few hundred characters at most. Back in the day this was achieved by server-side-rendered HTML and a simple form POST. I don’t have the numbers for the page back then but I’d estimate it at 100KB - nowadays it’s a multi-megabyte-sized pile of shit that often fails at its primary purpose of displaying a block of text with a stupid “something went wrong” message or endless spinner.

The “new” Reddit is also a good example. Even ignoring all the user-hostile functionality changes, the actual experience is still slower and less reliable.

[roywiggins]

And for proof that you can do better, Nitter is a better Twitter interface than Twitter is, and it's much lighter.

[can16358p]

Reddit web is incredibly sluggish. I open the app to browse which is a smooth experience (putng aside dark patterns).

Same for Twitter. Maybe it's intentional to move users into the app, where ads are more likely to be actually seen (e.g. Many web users have ad blockers) and in app purchases are frictionless.

[Nextgrid]

Just FYI, for Reddit there's an amazing third-party client called Apollo on iOS, and I'm sure there are others too, same on Android.

[can16358p]

Yeah I have it. I actually made the in app purchase to support the developer.

I ended up going back to the official app which I think is nice, but also feel nice about financially supporting an indie developer who does a nice third party client for a (generally) awesome community.