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The problem is, the people who want to make the web lightweight again seem to want to do so by eliminating the modern web entirely.Not entirely, though it may seem that because many proponents of lightweight web - like myself - are just tired of the modern one, and have comparative experience of how to make a site many times more functional and use the fraction of resources at the same time.
> No one seems to be asking how we could make the web that exists, and that billions of people actually use, better
Circling back to 'pdimitar point upthread: people use what they're given. They have no love for it, they just don't have any other choice. This way people adjust to the growing bloat of the web, and the same way they could adjust back to the leaner web.
And yes, many are asking how to make the web that exists better. Not many want to hear the answers, because they begin with "stop doing the crap you're doing right now". The answers are, stop doing SPAs for pages that fit the document model (which is 90%+ of them). Stop putting useless gimmicks on the frontend - like that Cleave.js thing from yesterday, for example[0]. Stop pulling in all the trackers and ad network scripts. Design your page function-first, form-second.
It's a hard sell, because it goes against several strong social phenomena, like CV-oriented and fashion-driven development, very lucrative surveillance capitalism business models, vendor lock-in and SaaS-ification of everything. That's why at least part of the solution will have to be technological - just asking people to behave isn't going to cut it.
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[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233637