The broadband myth
I wish to dispel a myth that many people have. It’s a really quite stupid myth. It’s the myth of broadband. There is this idea that everyone now has a fast Internet connection - fast enough that we no longer have to worry about speed.
Speed is still noticeable, even on faster Internet connections. This is the reason I use Mutt and Vim rather than Outlook and Word. It’s also the reason why I read USENET using slrn rather than Google Groups. It’s the reason I use an RSS reader. It’s the reason why I prefer to read a big plain text file than downloading a large movie. Just because you’ve got the ability to make a website that uses up lots of bandwidth doesn’t mean you should.
The myth is also wrong. We don’t all have fast Internet connections. There are plenty of people still on dial-up speed connections. These days they are called mobile phones, or overloaded conference wi-fi, or any number of other rather slow speed connections. If you are building anything, you should presume the slowest connection that you can. At some time in the next six months, I’ll probably find myself using it.
