5G - a technology that is likely to slow down the web
5G technology is already a reality. The corresponding icon is starting to appear on the top of phone screens around the world. If you are connected to a 5G network, you may have noticed that such a network does not seem much faster than a 4G network. I quite understand that. They say that now, in the days of the establishment of new networks, the process of infrastructure migration is hindering the real 5G speeds. But after 5G technology, in every sense, has matured, it is expected that network speeds will increase very much. So, according to some information, the average data download speeds in 5G networks in 2019 can range from 100 Mbit to 1 Gbit per second . This means that it will be possible to download the entire Friends discography, and then solemnly drag it into the basket, doing this in about the same time that it takes to load a regular web page. I'm not trying to go out on any specific numbers now. I’m only saying that, perhaps, work in 5G networks may look just like that. Such a future can only be called “beautiful”.
Yes, do not forget that in 5G networks not only the bandwidth will improve. A decrease in network latency is also expected. And delays are one of the long and notorious web performance bottlenecks. Reducing delays means that the time it takes to connect to a website can, as users feel, drop to almost zero. Again - it just looks wonderful.
It turns out that the quality of networks will very soon grow significantly. And that, it seems, should solve the speed problems of the modern web. So?
It should be, but the author of the material, the translation of which we publish today, does not expect 5G to really speed up the web. At least - it will accelerate, but not immediately. He believes that if modern trends in web development do not change, then the widespread adoption of 5G networks will lead to the fact that the average user will work on the web not better, but worse.
Faster networks should solve the problems of site loading speed, but so far the increase in network speeds has inadvertently had a negative impact on the web. I wonder why? The point is this: historically, network acceleration has allowed developers to send more code to website visitors. In particular, we are talking about JavaScript code.
From 2011 to 2019, the level of 4G coverage in the world grew from 5% to 79%. During the same time, the median value of the average amount of JavaScript code transmitted to mobile devices increased by 611% - from 52 Kb to 372.9 Kb. Of course, the volume of JS-code has grown not only due to the growth of network speeds. Many other factors contributed to this. Sites, of course, during this time have become much more interactive. This could well lead to an increase in the volume of their JS component. In addition, a responsive design has spread. As a result, many sites started sending the same JavaScript bundle to all devices on which these sites are browsing. True, it is worth clarifying that what desktop sites sent to customers on average only 50 KB more JS code in 2011 than their mobile counterparts. In general, it can be noted that the interface development patterns have not changed much since 2011. For example, the website of Boston Globe, in the development of which we participated, was created with great attention to the convenience of working with it on a variety of devices. It was launched in 2010. The interfaces of news sites are still arranged in exactly the same way. And finally, the above trend, according to recent data, continues. Namely, over the past couple of years, the average amount of JS code sent to customers has grown by more than 50% .
And now, before we start blaming JavaScript frameworks for everything, it should be noted that there is a feeling that the growth of JS-code is not fully tied to the capabilities of site interfaces. Here you should pay attention to the fact that most of the growth in the volume of code is associated with an increase in the use of third-party scripts by 706% . Undoubtedly, requests for downloading third-party scripts may refer to JS frameworks, but more often it is something else. This may be the code of trackers, A / B libraries, scripts for personalization. It can be advertising, chat bots ... And all this, in turn, makes requests for downloading additional scripts, and these additional scripts still load something. Before us, so to speak, unrestrained fun. But such fun usually has bad consequences.
So, as network bandwidth grew, so did the amount of JS code used on web pages. But even here you might think that if all this code loads quickly enough, then the growth of its volume is a relatively harmless phenomenon. True, this, unfortunately, is not so. If you compare JavaScript code with other types of resources used to create web pages, it turns out that JavaScript is a very expensive pleasure. The price of JavaScript is much higher than the price of other materials.
The convenience of developers can very easily lead the web industry on a crooked track.
On an average mobile device, of those still in use, parsing 200 KB of JavaScript code (compressed to speed up the transfer) may take 6 seconds or more . And this is after the code has been downloaded over the network. Before you decide that 200 Kb is unrealistic a lot for a certain site, I suggest you recall that viewing a modern site means that the user, on average, will download almost twice as much JS code. Moreover, in the process of parsing this code, the page may be visible, but not responsive. Or it may be that the page will be completely empty (this is if the script is connected to the page using the traditional approach, that is, so that its processing blocks the page rendering). An inactive page and a blank page are equally bad, but a particular concern is that many of those involved in web development do not even notice such problems themselves.
The average mobile device is not the latest expensive iPhone with three cameras. The average device, even in the US, is a best-selling phone that costs about $ 130. It may well be the iPhone, but by no means the newest. Most likely, it will be a mid-range Android phone containing relatively weak hardware stuffing. What can I say - here are the best-selling phones with Amazon. At the time of this writing, in third place was a $ 59 device.
If people with such phones even use the new fast networks, their devices will be literally “strangled” by the amount of code that must be processed to display web pages. And this will negate those potential improvements in the download speed of materials that can give a 5G network.
Organizing the distribution of 5G networks requires major infrastructure changes. The first candidates for the emergence of such networks are developed countries and high-tech cities. In developing countries and rural areas, these networks are unlikely to emerge as quickly. This means that people living where there is no 5G networks, in modern conditions, can not only work with web pages on not the fastest devices, but also download the code of these pages, the volume of which is growing, using old 3G and 2G -nets. Such people will be doubly ill from the introduction of 5G networks.
The responsibility to solve this problem lies with the web development industry, each of us. Of course, we need to improve the prioritization of delivering the content of web pages to customers, but we also need to stop including such huge amounts of JavaScript code in our projects. It is necessary to analyze the scripts used, regularly examine the dependencies of the projects. Many of these dependencies may be abandoned by their developers, or they may be short-lived projects. Perhaps we can even take advantage of The Telegraph 's experience here by deleting old third-party scripts and seeing if anyone complains about any problems. We can examine our dependence on tracking user actions and on personalizing ads. Perhaps we, just like The New York Times , will find out that serving regular non-personalized ads to users can increase our advertising revenue. And if that be so - it is worth getting rid of advertising scripts that have become unnecessary. You can use tools like Caliber or SpeedCurve to see that web project performance metrics do not go beyond boundaries. At the same time, it is worth striving to ensure that everyone who is related to the project takes care of the project, so that everyone knows about how its action or inaction affects the project.
Most importantly, we need to make sure that managers, website owners, developers, designers, and absolutely everyone, have access to middle-class phones and have the opportunity to regularly test our sites on such phones. And even better - if such phones are connected to a prepaid or limited tariff plan. This will let you know how long it will take to choose a traffic limit in the world of 5G networks. If everyone related to a certain site will know how its performance looks in the real world, this will have a beneficial effect on all visitors to the site. Including, by the way, for those who use fast modern phones.
Improving the quality of networks means that the development community has a great opportunity to improve the web space they create. Whether they will take advantage of this opportunity or not depends only on them.
Dear readers! Do you think that the widespread adoption of 5G networks can slow down the web?
Yes, do not forget that in 5G networks not only the bandwidth will improve. A decrease in network latency is also expected. And delays are one of the long and notorious web performance bottlenecks. Reducing delays means that the time it takes to connect to a website can, as users feel, drop to almost zero. Again - it just looks wonderful.
It turns out that the quality of networks will very soon grow significantly. And that, it seems, should solve the speed problems of the modern web. So?
It should be, but the author of the material, the translation of which we publish today, does not expect 5G to really speed up the web. At least - it will accelerate, but not immediately. He believes that if modern trends in web development do not change, then the widespread adoption of 5G networks will lead to the fact that the average user will work on the web not better, but worse.
Worse? But how is it?
Faster networks should solve the problems of site loading speed, but so far the increase in network speeds has inadvertently had a negative impact on the web. I wonder why? The point is this: historically, network acceleration has allowed developers to send more code to website visitors. In particular, we are talking about JavaScript code.
From 2011 to 2019, the level of 4G coverage in the world grew from 5% to 79%. During the same time, the median value of the average amount of JavaScript code transmitted to mobile devices increased by 611% - from 52 Kb to 372.9 Kb. Of course, the volume of JS-code has grown not only due to the growth of network speeds. Many other factors contributed to this. Sites, of course, during this time have become much more interactive. This could well lead to an increase in the volume of their JS component. In addition, a responsive design has spread. As a result, many sites started sending the same JavaScript bundle to all devices on which these sites are browsing. True, it is worth clarifying that what desktop sites sent to customers on average only 50 KB more JS code in 2011 than their mobile counterparts. In general, it can be noted that the interface development patterns have not changed much since 2011. For example, the website of Boston Globe, in the development of which we participated, was created with great attention to the convenience of working with it on a variety of devices. It was launched in 2010. The interfaces of news sites are still arranged in exactly the same way. And finally, the above trend, according to recent data, continues. Namely, over the past couple of years, the average amount of JS code sent to customers has grown by more than 50% .
And now, before we start blaming JavaScript frameworks for everything, it should be noted that there is a feeling that the growth of JS-code is not fully tied to the capabilities of site interfaces. Here you should pay attention to the fact that most of the growth in the volume of code is associated with an increase in the use of third-party scripts by 706% . Undoubtedly, requests for downloading third-party scripts may refer to JS frameworks, but more often it is something else. This may be the code of trackers, A / B libraries, scripts for personalization. It can be advertising, chat bots ... And all this, in turn, makes requests for downloading additional scripts, and these additional scripts still load something. Before us, so to speak, unrestrained fun. But such fun usually has bad consequences.
So, as network bandwidth grew, so did the amount of JS code used on web pages. But even here you might think that if all this code loads quickly enough, then the growth of its volume is a relatively harmless phenomenon. True, this, unfortunately, is not so. If you compare JavaScript code with other types of resources used to create web pages, it turns out that JavaScript is a very expensive pleasure. The price of JavaScript is much higher than the price of other materials.
“Everything looks good on my phone.”
The convenience of developers can very easily lead the web industry on a crooked track.
On an average mobile device, of those still in use, parsing 200 KB of JavaScript code (compressed to speed up the transfer) may take 6 seconds or more . And this is after the code has been downloaded over the network. Before you decide that 200 Kb is unrealistic a lot for a certain site, I suggest you recall that viewing a modern site means that the user, on average, will download almost twice as much JS code. Moreover, in the process of parsing this code, the page may be visible, but not responsive. Or it may be that the page will be completely empty (this is if the script is connected to the page using the traditional approach, that is, so that its processing blocks the page rendering). An inactive page and a blank page are equally bad, but a particular concern is that many of those involved in web development do not even notice such problems themselves.
The average mobile device is not the latest expensive iPhone with three cameras. The average device, even in the US, is a best-selling phone that costs about $ 130. It may well be the iPhone, but by no means the newest. Most likely, it will be a mid-range Android phone containing relatively weak hardware stuffing. What can I say - here are the best-selling phones with Amazon. At the time of this writing, in third place was a $ 59 device.
If people with such phones even use the new fast networks, their devices will be literally “strangled” by the amount of code that must be processed to display web pages. And this will negate those potential improvements in the download speed of materials that can give a 5G network.
What about those who do not have 5G connections?
Organizing the distribution of 5G networks requires major infrastructure changes. The first candidates for the emergence of such networks are developed countries and high-tech cities. In developing countries and rural areas, these networks are unlikely to emerge as quickly. This means that people living where there is no 5G networks, in modern conditions, can not only work with web pages on not the fastest devices, but also download the code of these pages, the volume of which is growing, using old 3G and 2G -nets. Such people will be doubly ill from the introduction of 5G networks.
What to do?
The responsibility to solve this problem lies with the web development industry, each of us. Of course, we need to improve the prioritization of delivering the content of web pages to customers, but we also need to stop including such huge amounts of JavaScript code in our projects. It is necessary to analyze the scripts used, regularly examine the dependencies of the projects. Many of these dependencies may be abandoned by their developers, or they may be short-lived projects. Perhaps we can even take advantage of The Telegraph 's experience here by deleting old third-party scripts and seeing if anyone complains about any problems. We can examine our dependence on tracking user actions and on personalizing ads. Perhaps we, just like The New York Times , will find out that serving regular non-personalized ads to users can increase our advertising revenue. And if that be so - it is worth getting rid of advertising scripts that have become unnecessary. You can use tools like Caliber or SpeedCurve to see that web project performance metrics do not go beyond boundaries. At the same time, it is worth striving to ensure that everyone who is related to the project takes care of the project, so that everyone knows about how its action or inaction affects the project.
Most importantly, we need to make sure that managers, website owners, developers, designers, and absolutely everyone, have access to middle-class phones and have the opportunity to regularly test our sites on such phones. And even better - if such phones are connected to a prepaid or limited tariff plan. This will let you know how long it will take to choose a traffic limit in the world of 5G networks. If everyone related to a certain site will know how its performance looks in the real world, this will have a beneficial effect on all visitors to the site. Including, by the way, for those who use fast modern phones.
Improving the quality of networks means that the development community has a great opportunity to improve the web space they create. Whether they will take advantage of this opportunity or not depends only on them.
Dear readers! Do you think that the widespread adoption of 5G networks can slow down the web?
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