The Digital Obesity of Modern Web

The "flicker" isn't a complex JavaScript calculation checking the system clock. It’s a simple CSS keyframe changing the opacity. It’s handled by the browser’s internal rendering engine, not the main thread. It costs the CPU effectively zero. It’s "cheap" magic.

But no. Instead of using these inventions—the very tools built into the browser to make things fast—we ignore them. We ignore the shadow effect, the native transitions, and the hardware-accelerated transforms.

Why Are We Building Better Loading Screens?

This is what kills me: I see more innovation in "loading screen design" than in "loading speed optimization."

Developers are spending weeks perfecting the way a progress bar pulses or how a skeleton screen shimmers. They are literally inventing new ways to hide the fact that their app is a bloated mess. It’s like putting a very expensive, slow-moving curtain in front of a stage where the actors are still trying to find their pants.

If you spent half the time you spent on that "innovative" loading animation on actually profiling your dependencies and utilizing native CSS effects, I wouldn't have to see the loading screen at all.

A Call for Engineering, Not Assembly

We grew up making things work with what we had. If the tractor broke, you fixed it with a wrench and a piece of wire. You didn't order a whole new engine from the factory.

We need to bring that spirit back to software. Stop treating the user’s RAM like an infinite buffet. Stop pretending that a 50MB initial payload for a "To-Do" list is acceptable just because "the internet is fast now."

We have the most powerful tools in human history. It is time we start acting like engineers again and stop acting like children playing with Lego blocks they don't understand. Optimize your code. Use the CSS. Kill the JS bloat. My 56kb modem self would be ashamed of what we’ve become.