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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

> The internet currently produces approximately 3.8% of global carbon emissions, which are rising in line with our hunger to consume more data.

This is not about "hunger to consume more data". Actual data doesn't take much. Needlessly inflated codebases and excessive video fidelity do.

Most of the people could use a decades-old computer and a <1Mbit/s connection to get and send all the information they might ever be interested in if we didn't insist on using huge JavaScript libraries, fancy design and HD+ video we lived perfectly well without just a decade ago. The problem is we seemingly need ever increasing everything to keep the economy growing.

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I'm constantly downgrading video on many sites myself, as I am perfectly content to stream in 720p max for movies, 480p for your average YT video, and even down to 144p for just streaming audio and podcasts. I only need 720p and 1080p for tutorials or online courses, and even then mostly because the streamers are using HD or UHD displays and I can't see what they're typing or essential UI elements I need to see. I don't WANT HD or higher videos or user streams - it's wasting my own data on my end as well. Inflated websites too with high-res images need a strainer these days to get to the information, or many sites have replaced simple text with HD video - which can get aggravating after awhile when I need to look up a procedure quick, and have to watch a 5 minute video instead of 4 seconds of reading the solution in text form.

What do you mean "we"?

Regular people don't ask for this stuff. It is presented to them as a gift, and they take the gift because of this or that specific reason. Don't blame regular people; they aren't the ones actively trying to keep the growth machine rolling.

> Most of the people could use a decades-old computer and a <1Mbit/s connection

The computer I'm writing this on is nearly a decade old and performs perfectly well on modern websites. Granted, I'm not going to try using a < 1Mb/s connection.

That being said, I agree that things like client-side (and server-side) scripting and video decoding (and encoding) reflects a disinterest in environmental concerns. I will disagree about the quantity of data playing a negligible role, since serving it may not be very energy hungry but building out infrastructure is. We can satisfy our needs with a lot less if we used all of our resources more effectively.

We should send invoices to sites that send data across set thresholds.

What's that, bloated news site? You don't want a bill of 10 USD per page served? Cut your bloat.

Yes, go on most popular websites, and most of the data consumption is not anything the visitor wants.

This also has the effect of shutting out people with expensive data, or slow networks. Who i'd guess are the same people most effected by the climate crisis.

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