Comparing local-network performance with "random" cross-internet traffic IMHO isn't very useful, because there is a wide range for internet latency.

My wired desktop gets DNS responses from 8.8.8.8 nearly as if it were in my network, in way under 10 ms, ping responses in 2 ms or so. Accessing websites hosted in e.g. Korea takes >100 ms.

Add a congested wireless connection somewhere (WLAN or mobile network) and you can add another few hundred ms. And neither cross-continent nor congested wireless latency is going to go away.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit - comparing local audio traffic to local web traffic, there's a heck of a lot of difference. That would be the stacks.

English much?

I said audio. I provided this as a counterexample to the stated thesis of your post. There exist things that can be done over a network such that latency is not an issue. I am obviously not pulling data over a cross-continental link.

FWIW, the protocols I write at work can do a full data pull - a couple thousand elements and growing - in under a half second end to end. I don't know of any HTML/Web based protocols that can even get close to that over localhost.

So yeah - we know the Web is an utter pig. My point is that it probably doesn't have to be.

Reading comprehension much?

The article was specifically about web page payload size. My comment was comparing UX of dynamic client-side logic vs full round trips.

You must replied to the wrong comment, I would hope.