Thread by @slightlylate

People sometimes suggest I should calm down about web performance because the web feels fine on *their* phone.

@DasSurma and I pulled a little data to try to visualise why that might be both true and not particularly relevant:

@DasSurma iOS devices are ~15% of smartphone devices shipments. If you are reading this tweet on one, congrats, you're very probably world-historically wealthy!

idc.com/promo/smartpho…

@DasSurma Something to note about the graphs: web performance is *largely* a function of single-core performance, and that's (relatively) much, much worse than multi-core perf in the Android ecosystem vs. iPhones.

@DasSurma As a result, getting web workloads better-threaded matters *much* more on Android than anywhere else. CSS Houdini, off-thread parse/compile, and workers matter much more in this environment: dassur.ma/things/when-wo…

@DasSurma Last point about the graphs: included an Android Go device ( Nokia 2) because that spec is prevalent for first-time internet users. Gap between "what I get when I trade in my phone every 2 years" and the true low-end is now a gaping chasm, and even 5 years ago, that wasn't true.

@DasSurma The takeaway here is that you literally can't afford desktop or iphone levels of JS if you're trying to make good web experiences for anyone but the world's richest users, and that likely means re-evaluating your toolchain.

@DasSurma And we wonder who cut down the last tree on Easter Island....: httparchive.org/reports/state-…