Whose web is it, anyway?
summary
Median desktop pages hit 2.3 megabytes median page (up 397% in a decade) while median mobile pages are ~2 MB, and a gigabyte costs 16.16% of monthly income (Yemen) — numbers that break assumptions about global users. Low-end Androids like the bestselling Galaxy A12 and networks with 0.8 Mbps (Rwanda) struggle with heavy client-side frameworks: a React “hello world” minifies to ~48 KB vs 77 bytes of HTML, and Twitter’s careers page delivers ~1.22 MB to show an email. Practical fixes: progressive web apps, service workers, capacitor.js packaging and regulatory pressure on Apple’s WebKit limits.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 2:00The importance of the web
- 4:40Global digital disparities
- 8:24Demographics and global economy
- 11:55Device and network constraints
- 15:32Framework performance impact
- 18:41Accessibility in modern apps
- 22:18Browser accessibility standards
- 25:06The power of progressive apps
- 28:10Apple and browser competition
- 30:52Legal advocacy for the web
- 34:20Conclusion and call to action
- 36:52Q&A session
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