On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 19:49:12 +0000, David Billington
wrote:

On 31/12/15 17:44, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 11:41:12 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 12/31/2015 10:45 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
...

FWIW, my 60 Mb Internet connection downloads the largest of those
photos in a little less than two seconds.

...

I guess that's fine for those who have access to such bandwidth; not all
do (no matter what the cost might be).
Again, if it's not business, it's better to accomodate slow
connections.

I look at Iggy's pictures occasionally and find them invariably slow to
load, I had assumed it was his server but not looked at the size of the
images. My ADSL is around 5Mbps so don't find many things a problem but
it is getting worse as web designers add more "features", scripting is
getting a pain with many sites and the NoScript add on is useful for
that . When I did my website most people had dial-up so the first images
people see are a sensible size for reasonably quick loading on a dial-up
connection then if the viewer wants to see more they can click the image
and get a larger version in a new window. I'm sure Iggy could do that
easily and automate it.

This is one of the ongoing debates among commercial companies on the
Web, and there is a lot to discuss. Suffice to say that most people
prefer the "richer" websites, and that 44 US states now have *average*
broadband speeds above 10 Mbps download.

A couple of days ago, NYC opened its first two free wifi kiosks, with
gigabit wifi, in my son's neighborhood. They're installing 7,500 more.
The state of NY is investing $500 million, with another $500 million
provided by the private sector, to raise minimum download speeds to
100 Mbps throughout the state by 2019.

Where I live, in NJ, the average is above 15 Mbps. The same is true
for the other mid-Atlantic seaboard states, plus Washington and Utah.
My service is 60 Mbps; for a few bucks more per month, I could have
100.

That's where most of the customers are. A lot of RCM members live
outside of metro areas, but they aren't typical of the majority of US
users.

So, again, if you're a business and you're deciding how much of a load
to put on your website, you have to consider who your customers are
and how much it takes to stand out and keep them coming back. My
business -- online publishing -- wrestles with it all the time. A site
like Iggy's, which doesn't rely on online interactivity, big videos or
3D PDFs, can be really compact and fast -- except for his big photos.
But sites in many visually and technically competitive businesses keep
reaching for more.

--
Ed Huntress