Are you experiencing a longer waiting time in downloading that game or video? Does the buffering wheel seem like it's not going to end? And no matter how much you have tried fixing your internet service provider, there are still added minutes or seconds to your Internet's speed?
The reason for this is plain and simple: your web is getting slower.
HTTP Archive's tracking of the worldwide data shows that the average size of a website is now 2.1 MB. That's about twice the size of an average site from three years ago, as reported by CNN.
With the continuous growth of smartphones, wearables, watches, tablets, and other gadgets built to go online, "developers have to create even more versions of websites and Web components to fit evermore formats," according to CNN.
In fact, some websites have more than 50 different images in order to mix and match in loading on various devices. Other than images, this additional complexity requires more codes and links, adding more to the site's bulk.
"The shift from desktop to mobile requests and consumption have had the biggest impact on website performance," Craig Adams, VP of Web experience products at content delivery network Akamai, which caters to 15% to 30% of all daily online traffic.
The biggest parts of websites are still photos and videos, making up almost three-fourths of their size for the past three years. And their size continues to grow rapidly with the help of the emerging number of devices worldwide.
Moreover, websites are adding more attention-grabbing videos, interactive plug-ins, and other heavy features that "clog up broadband pipes and wireless spectrum."
With the trend of using tracking and analysis tools in learning more about their visitors and creating stronger encryption in securing and shielding themselves from possible threats, the Internet is undoubtedly getting smaller for everyone.
"Inserting third-party data trackers not only increases a website's weight, but also the number of separate data fetching tasks, which leads to slower load times as well," CNN reported.
There are also other factors why your web is slowing down. The effects might only be quantified in tolerable milliseconds, but in the next years to come, the waiting time might develop and your buffering wheel might rest on your screen a bit longer.
