[Joeri]

That 15mb still needs to be parsed on every page load, even if it runs in interpreted mode. And on low end devices there’s very little cache, so the working set is likely to be far bigger than available cache, which causes performance to crater.

[riskable]

Ah, that's the thing: "on page load". A one-time expense! If you're using modern page routing, "loading a new URL" isn't actually loading a new page... The client is just simulating it via your router/framework by updating the page URL and adding an entry to the history.

Also, 15MB of JS is nothing on modern "low end devices". Even an old, $5 Raspberry Pi 2 won't flinch at that and anything slower than that... isn't my problem! Haha =)

There comes a point where supporting 10yo devices isn't worth it when what you're offering/"selling" is the latest & greatest technology.

It shouldn't be, "this is why we can't have nice things!" It should be, "this is why YOU can't have nice things!"

[snovv_crash]

When you write code with this mentality it makes my modern CPU with 16 cores at 4HGz and 64GB of RAM feel like a Pentium 3 running at 900MHz with 512MB of RAM.

Please don't.

[port11]

This really is a very wrong take. My iPhone 11 isn't that old but it struggles to render some websites that are Chrome-optimised. Heck, even my M1 Air has a hard time sometimes. It's almost 2026, we can certainly stop blaming the client for our shitty webdevelopment practices.

[fluoridation]

>There comes a point where supporting 10yo devices isn't worth it

Ten years isn't what it used to be in terms of hardware performance. Hell, even back in 2015 you could probably still make do with a computer from 2005 (although it might have been on its last legs). If your software doesn't run properly (or at all) on ten-year-old hardware, it's likely people on five-year-old hardware, or with a lower budget, are getting a pretty shitty experience.

I'll agree that resources are finite and there's a point beyond which further optimizations are not worthwhile from a business sense, but where that point lies should be considered carefully, not picked arbitrarily and the consequences casually handwaved with an "eh, not my problem".