Code bloat
Many of today's apps & websites are built inefficiently and become worse over time. They take ever more computing power
Examples
Email in web browsers
Hotmail has become slower with every update. While there has been some increase in features for the user, all of them could have been implemented far more efficiently.
Gmail is similar. There used to be a "basic HTML" version that was extremely fast & responsive, but it was discontinued in March 2024.
Video apps
TikTok is known to slow down phones, decrease battery life
YouTube generally runs a lot smoother on the same phone, with the same video quality. However, YouTube is known to be slow on some desktop computers
Almost all computers & smartphones made after 2010 are physically capable of playing video files. When a video app is slow, it's the fault of the developers.
News websites
The website's job is display text, images, and the occasional video. Computers have been capable of this for decades. But some websites are loaded up with so many scripts that they become slow for most of the users.
Some of this is data tracking, but not all of it. There's also the way most web developers build websites: with layers and layers of complex tools/frameworks just to do simple things.
Why it's a problem
People are effectively forced to buy new electronics, far sooner than they would otherwise need to. This makes life unnecessarily expensive, and takes a heavy toll on the environment.
Awareness
Most people are probably unaware that code bloat even exists. It's commonly accepted that computers just get "slower" over time - even though there's no physical reason why this has to happen. Circuit boards aren't cars - they don't slow down as they get old. It's the software that becomes slow.
What causes code bloat
- Most code bloat is probably from widespread bad practices in software development. [ELABORATION needed]
- Some code bloat is done intentionally by corporations: either to promote planned obsolescence, or to collect user data, or both. However, corporations are only part of the problem; non-corporate open-source software projects can be just as bloated.
No matter if it's due to malice or just bad practice, the effects are the same.
Solutions
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Petitions
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