> If the only change is that it loads faster, and he doesn't grow his audience, then he hasn't really achieved anything.
If this makes his readers happier, it is a success nonetheless.
Maybe this is a startup/HN thing that everything must grow and grow. But that isn't the only successful strategy, even from a purely economic point of view.
If you have a niche, and serve that niche very well, you can beat your competitors by quality rather than quantity. Not all niches are large. If you manage to cover 100% of your niche, it is a huge success! - even if 100% means just a few thousand people.
> If Jacques blog gets a significant amount more traffic by loading super fast then that's a definite, measurable success. If the only change is that it loads faster, and he doesn't grow his audience, then he hasn't really achieved anything.
If audience growth were the target, then yes that's true. But what matters too is that the audience that you already have does not spend more money (downloaded bytes on mobile for instance) or time (delay time waiting for stuff to load) than they really need to. On top of that I suspect (but can't prove) that a faster site will lead to people viewing more pages on that same site simply because of the convenience. For ad driven sites (which this is definitely not) that might turn into more turnover, and for e-commerce sites (which there is plenty of proof for) faster load times result in more turnover.
Keeping your users happy is important, even if you don't attract more of them directly. (Retention is a very important factor in a growth strategy...)
Premature optimization is definitely the root of all evil, but bloat is something you can do without. It's a matter of striking the right balance and I think that this blog probably is on the 'wrong' side of that balance but I just wanted to make an example of how much bloat there really is.
I'm reasonably sure that this theory is backed up by data. I don't have the time to look up the studies just now, but as someone with a professional interest in this, I'm pretty sure I've seen them in the past.
Certainly, page speed has a surprisingly large impact on overall user experience - backed up by studies like Amazon's and Google's, both of which showed a correlation between faster page load and increased user activity.
it assumes that anything under 400ms response can add to the addictiveness of a user interface.
For me, Google’s homepage circa 2005 was just as useful as the current one (or more useful even, since their results weren’t as crapped up by SEO spam sites, and the search syntax itself was more power-user friendly and predictable).
I used to occasionally click google ads, but they’ve gotten so obnoxious that I just zap the domain in /etc/hosts. I used to exclusively use google search, but it’s gotten slow and annoying enough that I now mostly use duckduckgo instead.
Clearly that’s not the main part of their user base, but spending a decade chasing money at the expense of user experience isn’t all upside, even for Google.
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
html,body { margin: 0, width: 100%; }
body, input { font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.4em; }
form { margin: 20% auto; width: 26em; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form action="https://www.google.com/search" method="get">
<input type="text" name="q" placeholder="search" size="30">
<input type="submit" value="google">
</form>
</body>
</html> data:text/html,%20%20%20%20%3Chtml%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Chead%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cstyle%20type%3D%22text%2Fcss%22%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20html%2Cbody%20%7B%20margin%3A%200%2C%20width%3A%20100%25%3B%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20body%2C%20input%20%7B%20font-family%3A%20Verdana%2C%20sans-serif%3B%20font-size%3A%201.2em%3B%20line-height%3A%201.4em%3B%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20form%20%7B%20margin%3A%2020%25%20auto%3B%20width%3A%2026em%3B%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3C%2Fstyle%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3C%2Fhead%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cbody%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cform%20action%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%22%20method%3D%22get%22%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cinput%20type%3D%22text%22%20name%3D%22q%22%20placeholder%3D%22search%22%20size%3D%2230%22%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cinput%20type%3D%22submit%22%20value%3D%22google%22%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3C%2Fform%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3C%2Fbody%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%3C%2Fhtml%3E
data:text/html,%3Chtml%3E%3Chead%3E%3Cstyle%20type%3D%22text%2Fcss%22%3Ehtml%2Cbody%20%7B%20margin%3A%200%2C%20width%3A%20100%25%3B%20%7Dbody%2C%20input%20%7B%20font-family%3A%20Verdana%2C%20sans-serif%3B%20font-size%3A%201.2em%3B%20line-height%3A%201.4em%3B%20%7Dform%20%7B%20margin%3A%2020%25%20auto%3B%20width%3A%2026em%3B%20%7D%3C%2Fstyle%3E%3C%2Fhead%3E%3Cbody%3E%3Cform%20action%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%22%20method%3D%22get%22%3E%3Cinput%20type%3D%22text%22%20name%3D%22q%22%20placeholder%3D%22search%22%20size%3D%2230%22%3E%3Cinput%20type%3D%22submit%22%20value%3D%22google%22%3E%3C%2Fform%3E%3C%2Fbody%3E%3C%2Fhtml%3ESure he has achieved something. He has made his readers a little bit happier. Presumably, he has also made himself a little bit happier. It's called progress.
If there wasn't so much crud being transmitted I would be out an entire business, on the other hand, the entire internet would be a much nicer place
[1] https://www.branded3.com/blog/billion-dollar-javascript/
Before I had to scroll and the page shoots to the bottom. Talk about not knowing what you write about...
Take the first paragraph, about how Google's homepage of just a textbox should really be a few hundred bytes instead of a megabyte. Google's homepage does a lot more than just enabling you to enter a search - there's the autosuggest feature, there's analytics, the apps tray, G+ integration with live updates, etc. Google's homepage looks basic but under the hood there's a lot going on. Which is the real crux of the matter - Google have designed something that doesn't get in the way of searching but is really a powerful portal to Google's suite of services because that's what gets them the data that makes them money. The fact they might be able to shave a milliseconds off the domContentLoaded time (which is only 394ms on my work PC) wouldn't make anyone happier but it would damage their bottom line because they'd know less about us.
If Jacques blog gets a significant amount more traffic by loading super fast then that's a definite, measurable success. If the only change is that it loads faster, and he doesn't grow his audience, then he hasn't really achieved anything.
There's a good lesson in this that's analogous to startups that spend huge amounts of time and money doing things that get them no additional customers. Optimising things that don't affect the metrics you use to measure how successful you're being is a waste of effort. Put your time in to things that actually matter.