For most users, your browser is your OS. Hell even when it isn’t, most desktop apps use HTML+CSS for their UI. Hell even many user-facing “embedded” apps (like TVs) are running linux with chrome and showing a webapp as their UI.
The layout engine is just that good and convenient. And downloading fresh app source on every visit solves a lot of problems.
This part of the web is getting bloated and slow.
On the other hand are websites. These are fat as heck thanks to CDN and broadband and advances in server compute power. They load faster than ever.
Remember when downloading memes required eMule? I do.
Now I go to imgur and watch 30MB high def gifs like it’s nothing. My 13 year old self would shit his pants in awe.
Are ads and trackers bloating websites? Yes. Are most websites built like webapps even when there’s no need? Yes.
Blame tooling. Go help. What can we as a profession do to make it easier for random developers with no skill build faster better websites?
Right now we’re actively telling everyone they need to build as if they’re FAANG. Then we complain when a part time dev working for a mom&pop shop can’t wrangle all this tooling built for teams of 1000’s into a solid experience.