GIFs are so stupidly easy to use and distribute that I sometimes can’t wrap my head around how convenient the format is.

A while ago, I tried to be a good nerd and convert some GIFs to HTML5 video, and I crashed and burned pretty hard: https://ndarville.com/asides/webvideo/.

I gained a new appreciation of GIFs that day.

That said, it would be great if we got a compromise where browsers can load only the first frame of the GIF and play the reminder on click or touch to save all the loading and data—on both sides, really.