[happytoexplain]

They do not "presume" anything. They state clearly that the old version of the library was causing performance problems. They also state that 32k is noticeable on slow connections, which it absolutely is. In fact, on unstable connections, it can mean the difference between the site loading and not loading. Reliability is critical for government services. They also mention that the work improved the codebase and the developers' experience with it, which is a criminally underrated means of improving efficiency and therefore reducing cost.

All in all, this sounds like fantastic work relative to what we normally expect from government end user software. We should encourage this kind of thing, not jump to the hand-wavy "my tax dollars!" complaint, which approaches meaninglessness in its commonality.

[kordlessagain]

They do presume this is a problem when they don't quantify it. At the end of the article it is made clear there is no quantification going on:

> We’ll provide more detail about exactly what that means in the next blog post.

The whole premise of the article is conjecture until we see the performance numbers presented. The claim is that removing a one-time load 32kB library is useful to page load times and user experience for low end users. It has ZERO specifications or performance numbers cited.

Besides which, the net effect of more data on a page is that it takes a little longer to load the page. For someone who has a slow phone, they are conditioned to this through use of other sites (or even clicking on the housing link at the top of the UK Gov site and waiting for a 360kB image to load). What is the advantage of speeding it up for them for a single site they may or may not use?

Will we also take it upon ourselves to justify anything that makes them click on the wrong link and have to wait to go back? Unlikely.