You’ve felt it. You click a link, and you wait. You stare at a blank screen, a loading spinner, or a skeleton frame that looks like a ghost of a website. You wait for the text to arrive.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the internet was instant.
Recently, someone dug up an old ASP.NET website from decades ago. You know what happened? It loaded in literally one second. Instant navigation, instant data, zero lag. This is what businesses have always wanted, but they’ve been gaslit into accepting a 50MB React mess instead.
We traded a 1-second load time for a 50-megabyte JavaScript bundle, and we call it progress.
How did we get here? The paradox of modern web development is that our technological “progress” has actually caused a regression in core user experience. We have richer interactivity and complex frameworks, but we’ve sacrificed the fundamental purpose of the web: instant information access.
The real driver behind this bloat isn’t user demand. Users don’t want Single Page Applications or hydration. They want to read an article, buy a product, or check a price. The bloat exists because the developer ecosystem prioritizes shiny tooling and maintainability over the end-user experience.
The modern web isn’t built for the user; it’s an elaborate playground for developers to avoid writing basic HTML.
Think about it. If you’re building a simple blog or a local business landing page, why are you shipping megabytes of JavaScript? Why are you waiting for a virtual DOM to reconcile before showing a paragraph of text? We’ve normalized an environment where businesses are told that waiting 5 seconds for a page to become interactive is just “the cost of modern web apps.”
It’s a lie. It’s gaslighting.
That old ASP site didn’t need a build step. It didn’t need a package manager. It didn’t need to fetch a massive bundle to figure out how to render a table. The server sent HTML, the browser drew it, and the user got what they wanted.
We didn’t upgrade the web. We just buried it under a heavy abstraction layer and convinced the world that the lag was a feature.
If you build websites, buy websites, or simply use them, it’s time to stop accepting the status quo. Stop worshipping at the altar of modern frameworks when the job doesn’t call for it. Stop letting developer convenience dictate user suffering.
The internet was supposed to be fast. It’s time we take that back.
FAQ
Q: But don't modern frameworks allow for better user experiences and complex apps?
A: For a complex app like Google Maps or Figma, absolutely. But for 90% of the web—blogs, e-commerce, news—they are bloated overkill that actively ruins speed and user experience.
Q: So, should I just stop using React and modern frameworks?
A: No, use the right tool for the job. If you're building a static site or a simple landing page, use static HTML or a lightweight generator. Stop defaulting to heavy SPAs when basic server-rendered HTML is faster.
Q: Is prioritizing developer experience actually a bad thing?
A: When it comes at the direct expense of the user, yes. If your code is incredibly easy to maintain but takes 10 seconds to load on a mobile device, you have failed the user and the business.