Web Page File Size

An aspect of Web Development that seems to have taken a back seat compared to it's importance in the 90's and early 2000's is web page file size. Since the developed world has vastly increased penetration of broadband users, the need for small web page size has been reduced, however, that does not take into account the users who have to use dial-up because of living in rural areas or a variety of other reasons. Developing countries also don't have as much broadband penetration as developed countries, and on top of this is the major uptake in mobile web users who often use slow mobile networks to traverse the web.

Years ago, dial-up was the only way to access the web, with speeds of 56k and slower, websites with flashy graphics and videos often took too long to view and would frustrate users, so there was an emphasis on small web page sizes.

This graph clearly shows a massive increase in both file sizes and the amount of objects on web pages over the years for the top 1000 web pages in the world. I distinctly remember going over my download limit on my home connection back in 2010 and being extremely frustrated with how slowly web pages loaded, I can't believe this is how many rural users feel all the time. Although, I am no statistician, and statistics can be deceiving without the proper context, I can't see any reason why this upwards trend will not continue for many more years. Although broadband penetration will continue to increase, and mobile networks will become faster, less bloat is always a good thing and something that web developers should be striving for.