Tags: jevons

Tim Paul | Automation and the Jevons paradox

This is insightful:

AI and automation is often promoted as a way of handling complexity. But handling complexity isn’t the same as reducing it.

In fact, by getting better at handling complexity we’re increasing our tolerance for it. And if we become more tolerant of it we’re likely to see it grow, not shrink.

From that perspective, large language models are over-engineered bandaids. They might appear helpful at the surface-level but they’re never going to help tackle the underlying root causes.

5G Will Definitely Make the Web Slower, Maybe | Filament Group, Inc.

The Jevons Paradox in action:

Faster networks should fix our performance problems, but so far, they have had an interesting if unintentional impact on the web. This is because historically, faster network speed has enabled developers to deliver more code to users—in particular, more JavaScript code.

And because it’s JavaScript we’re talking about:

Even if folks are on a new fast network, they’re very likely choking on the code we’re sending, rendering the potential speed improvements of 5G moot.

The longer I spend in this field, the more convinced I am that web performance is not a technical problem; it’s a people problem.