The end of web design as we know it?
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Time Warner Cable recently backed off of their plan to enforce a 40GB cap on customers in the Austin/San Antonio area after negative publicity made them think twice. However, they haven’t abandoned it entirely yet - instead insisting that they would continue to “educate” their customers about bandwidth usage and continue on the path of capping bandwidth at a slower pace.
A recent article posted on Slashdot told the story of one Austin customer that found their internet completely cut off by Time Warner due to, what they deemed, unreasonably high usage. He had been capped at around 40GB per week and it took several days before his service was restored after he had been lectured to by a Time Warner representative. Since the idea of capping bandwidth usage is one that has wide spread appeal to the companies that provide internet access it is safe to assume that the cap is coming, and there will be almost nowhere to turn to get away from it.
If that is the case, web designers might have to rethink how they set up their sites. I went to the Time Warner Cable site and it is full of massive pictures, flash video, and heavy graphics that take up more bandwidth than is necessary. If they want to charge us more for using more bandwidth they need to make a site as light and fast as possible instead of eating up our precious bandwidth. It doesn’t matter that a theoretical 40GB monthly cap might not ever get hit by the average user, the perception that everything downloaded is potentially going to cost you extra is all that matters. The new field of web design that could be coming would have to focus on cleanliness and speed rather than graphics and flash. If and when they do finish their efforts to limit the amount of data we can download the internet might look more like Craigslist and less like… well… less like just about every website you use today.
14 Comments
Topics about Craigslist | The end of web design as we know it?
April 25th, 2009
at 11:14am
[...] lessons from my world placed an observative post today on The end of web design as we know it?Here’s a quick excerptTime Warner Cable recently backed off of their plan to enforce a 40GB cap on customers in the Austin/San Antonio area after negative publicity made them think twice. However, they haven’t abandoned it entirely yet - instead insisting that they would continue to “educate” their customers about bandwidth usage and continue on the path of capping bandwidth at a slower pace. A recent article posted on Slashdot told the story of one Austin customer that found their internet completely cut off [...]
fol
April 25th, 2009
at 11:19am
полезные ссылки…
However, they haven’t abandoned it entirely yet - instead insisting that they would continue to[...]…
Topics about Web-design | The end of web design as we know it?
April 25th, 2009
at 11:26am
[...] lessons from my world put an intriguing blog post on The end of web design as we know it?Here’s a quick excerptTime Warner Cable recently backed off of their plan to enforce a 40GB cap on customers in the Austin/San Antonio area after negative publicity made them think twice. However, they haven’t abandoned it entirely yet - instead insisting that they would continue to “educate” their customers about bandwidth usage and continue on the path of capping bandwidth at a slower pace. A recent article posted on Slashdot told the story of one Austin customer that found their internet completely cut off [...]
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April 25th, 2009
at 11:28am
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April 25th, 2009
at 11:37am
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April 25th, 2009
at 11:46am
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Aaron
April 25th, 2009
at 12:27pm
We’re gonna surf the web like it’s 1999… I guess I should brush up on my HTML skills. The problem with the caps is that blocking ads will be more of a necessity than it is now. While flash ads that play sound and video are just annoying now, I’d block those bandwidth hogs in a heartbeat if they contributed toward using up my cap.
rus
April 25th, 2009
at 12:42pm
очень интересно…
However, they haven’t abandoned it entirely yet - instead insisting that they would continue to “educate” their customers about[...]…
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April 25th, 2009
at 1:05pm
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April 25th, 2009
at 1:27pm
[...] Go here to see the original: The end of web design as we know it? ~ lessons from my world [...]
leftystrat
April 25th, 2009
at 10:50pm
No disrespect intended, but YAY!
You’re right - web designers will have to rethink how they set up their sites. And it’s about time. Sometimes I wonder who is more addicted to excess; the users or the designers.
Designers have to understand that not everybody loves BLING. There are many sites I can’t view at all because I don’t use Flash much. There is a percentage of viewers that just want the info - not blinky lights, javascript popups, and full motion video all over the place.
Aside from Time Warner, no one wants bandwidth caps. But if it takes the threat of caps to get designers to streamline their sites, then some good has come from it.
Btw, I’m old enough to have used text browsers, then Netscape (with graphics turned off because of slow dialup connections). I had my own website before the web went commercial and coded it in Windows Notepad. This was obviously before `someone who did websites’ became a Web Designer
Thanks for bringing up this excellent point.
Zenium
April 26th, 2009
at 9:27pm
Wait, no body mention that bandwidth caps just plain suck!
I pay Comcast $60 a month for internet service. At that price don’t particularly care for the idea that they may cap me a something like 50 or 100 GB per month. And in my area I have no choice but Comcast for highspeed internet service.
No wonder the US is a third rate nation when it comes to broadband deployment. It cost too much and the service providers have no desire to do anything to reduce the cost.
web design company manager
May 12th, 2009
at 9:27am
I like minimalism in the design. A site should be stylish and easy to use to attract visitors. That’s it.
let them eat dodgy flvs
May 20th, 2009
at 10:33pm
“If they want to charge us more for using more bandwidth they need to make a site as light and fast as possible instead of eating up our precious bandwidth”
hah hah haaaa
maybe TimeWarner “Friends and Family” get free bandwidth? or maybe flash-ad sites will subsidize their bandwidth load…
but hmm,
“We’re gonna surf the web like it’s 1999″
oh yeah, i *do* recall netzero and juno in the 1990’s.
[and, kudos to "astra-design's" self-stated efficiency principle]
truthfully, i like proxomitron more cuz it kills some of the obnoxious tracking, link-mangling & script crappe on many websites. while proxo also kills ads, I’m nearly immune to ads.