Google’s AMP—an Internet giant tackles the old myth of “the Web is too slow”

"Too slow," where have we heard that one before? (credit: Getty Images)

There's a story going around today that the Web is too slow, especially over mobile networks. It's a pretty good story—and it's a perpetual story. The Web, while certainly improved from the days of 14.4k modems, has never been as fast as we want it to be, which is to say that the Web has never been instantaneous.

Curiously, rather than a focus on possible cures, like increasing network speeds, finding ways to decrease network latency, or even speeding up Web browsers, the latest version of the "Web is too slow" story pins the blame on the Web itself. And, perhaps more pointedly, this blame falls directly on the people who make it.

The average webpage has increased in size at a terrific rate. In January 2012, the average page tracked by HTTPArchive transferred 1,239kB and made 86 requests. Fast forward to September 2015, and the average page loads 2,162kB of data and makes 103 requests. These numbers don't directly correlate to longer page load-and-render times, of course, especially if download speeds are also increasing. But these figures are one indicator of how quickly webpages are bulking up.

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