[notjoemama]

Because of TCP, large chunks are always split into smaller chunks. It’s just that at the HTTP level we don’t know and don’t see it. UDP forces people into designing their own protocols if the data is a defined package of bytes. Having done some socket coding my impression is web sockets would be good for a high end browser based game, browser based simulations, or maybe a high end trading system. At that point the browser is just a shell/window. As others have pointed out, there are already plenty of alternatives for web applications.

[jeroenhd]

The problem for things like video games and trading is that websockets only support TCP by default. Technologies like WebRTC allow for much faster updates.

I think websockets certainly have their uses. Mostly in systems where SSE isn't available quickly and easily, or when sending a bunch of quick communications one after another as there's no way to know if the browser will pipeline the requests automatically or if it'll set up a whole bunch of requests.