[SR2Z]

...so if you spend an extra $4 on your computer, you can get an extra GB of memory to run Electron in?

Here's the other unspoken issue: WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED SO MUCH MEMORY FOR!?

When I use a computer, I am in the minority of users who run intensive stuff like a compiler or ML training run. That's still a minute portion of the total time I spend on my computer. You know what I always have open? A browser and a text editor.

Yes, they could use less memory. But I don't need them to use less memory, I need them to run quickly and smoothly because even a 64GB stick of RAM costs almost nothing compared to how much waiting for your browser sucks.

[Dylan16807]

My motherboard does not support more memory. Closer to hundreds of dollars than $4. And no I will not justify my memory use to you.

And price is a pathetic excuse for bad work. RAM gets 50x cheaper and some devs think it's fine to use 50x as much of it making their app work? That's awful. That's why computers are still unresponsive half the time despite miracles of chipmaking.

Devs getting good computers compounds this problem too, when they get it to "fast enough" on their machine and stop touching it.

And memory being cheap is an especially bad justification when a program is used by many people. If you make 50 million people use $4 of RAM, that's a lot. Except half the time the OEM they bought the computer from charges $20 for that much extra RAM. Now the bloat's wasting a billion dollars.

And please remember that a lot of people have 4GB or 8GB and no way to replace it. Their apps move to electron and they can't run them all at once anymore? Awful.

[SR2Z]

> RAM gets 50x cheaper and some devs think it's fine to use 50x as much of it making their app work? That's awful.

That's ABSURD.

> That's why computers are still unresponsive half the time despite miracles of chipmaking.

Have you ever actually used VSCode? It's pretty snappy even on older hardware.

Of course, software can be written poorly and still fit in a small amount of memory, too :)

> Now the bloat's wasting a billion dollars.

Unless users had some other reason for buying a machine with a lot of RAM, like playing video games or compiling code.

Do you think most users spec their machines with the exact 4GB of RAM that it takes to run a single poorly-written Electron app?

> And please remember that a lot of people have 4GB or 8GB and no way to replace it. Their apps move to electron and they can't run them all at once anymore? Awful.

Dude, it's 2025.

I googled "cheapest smartphones India" and the first result was for the Xiaomi POCO F1. It has 8GB of RAM and costs ₹6,199 - about $62. That's a whole-ass _phone_, not just the RAM.

If you want to buy a single 8GB stick of DDR3? That's about $15 new.

> My motherboard does not support more memory. Closer to hundreds of dollars than $4.

If you are buying HUNDREDS of dollars of RAM, you are building a powerful system which almost certainly is sitting idle most of the time.

> And no I will not justify my memory use to you.

Nobody is forcing you to run an electron app, they're just not catering to this weird fetish for having lots of unused RAM all the time.

[Dylan16807]

> That's ABSURD.

What is? The devs or my claim? There are apps that use stupid amounts of memory to do the same thing a windows 98 app could do.

And you can do good or bad within the framework of electron but the baseline starts off fat.

> Unless users had some other reason for buying a machine with a lot of RAM, like playing video games or compiling code.

If they want to do both at the same time, they need the extra. Things like music or chat apps are a constant load.

> Dude, it's 2025.

As recently as 2024 a baseline Mac came with 8GB. Soldered, so you can't buy a stick of anything.

> If you are buying HUNDREDS of dollars of RAM

Not hundreds of dollars of RAM, hundreds of dollars to get a different platform that accepts more RAM.

> Nobody is forcing you to run an electron app

I either don't get to use many programs and services, or I have to deal with these problems that they refuse to solve. So it's reasonable to complain even though I'm not forced.

> weird fetish for having lots of unused RAM

I have no idea why you think I'm asking for unused RAM.

When I run out, I don't mean that my free amount tipped below 10GB, I mean I ran out and things lag pretty badly while swapping, and without swap would have crashed entirely.