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Comment by OhMeadhbh | Hacker News Reader

Or we could go back to using software that didn't require 1 Gb to run the OS / Browser combo powerful enough to run a browser that can load "too much" javascript to enable a webmail interface.

In the 80s I ran an early SMTP / POP email client that functioned as a DOS TSR with code and data less than 64k. Granted, it was pretty crappy and was text-only (non MIME.) But there's got to be a middle ground between 64k for a craptastic text-only email client and a 1Gb OS / Browser / Webmail combo that could probably run that DOS TSR in an emulator as an attachment to a short email.

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You have to ship software that behaves exactly the same across three desktop operating systems and two mobile operating systems. Be glad we leave out tablets for this. You're able to hire 4 vibecoding juniors and your deadline is in 6 months.

You know what you choose for a frontend? It's Electron + React and React Native.

And none of your customers will complain because the people with money to spend are rocking 12GB of RAM on their phone.

Yeah. That's not the world I live in. I live in the terminal.

Congrats on being part of the 0.001% I guess?

The election apps are the same size as a complete VM of windows 2000.

People optimize to what is scarce. Previously, developer time was much more scare than memory. Seems like that might change so folks might start to optimize to memory. It's not a moral judgement, it's a technical decision about where to allocate resources.

Yo, your comment makes it seem like AI deserves this memory and chrome does not...

They're saying the amount of bloat in modern software is so ridiculous that it requires multiple gigabytes of memory to run a single application that, in a sane universe, shouldn't occupy more than a hundred MB.

AI doesn't deserve it more than we do, but also we shouldn't be required to have $300 in RAM for basic functionality. We shouldn't have to deal with RAM scalpers because businesses don't want to develop good software.

Instead, we the users are forced to pay for more and more memory and CPU and disk because some rich asshole doesn't want to spend the money on developing good software. The costs are pushed to us. And since resources are now unimaginably expensive, it's still our problem and we still have to foot the bill a million times over.

Yo, are you saying AI is not the epitome of bloat? Like, it's not a cancer of epic proportions. Very confused..

Wat?

LLMs use a lot of RAM as a fundamental part of their operation. The RAM is used to achieve the goal as efficiently as we know how. Even if you disagree with the goal needing to be achieved at all, the RAM usage is about as efficient as we can design.

Regular modern applications use a lot of RAM as an incidental or accidental part of their operation. Even if you think the tasks that they're achieving are of extreme need, the RAM use is excessive.

These problems are apples and oranges. You can hate both, or one, or neither. I know plenty of people who are in each one of those camps.

Chrome fundamentally uses ram ato avoid. What?

What a weird LLM apologetics.

If you don’t think Chrome could be way more RAM efficient, and especially if you don’t think the things running inside Chrome could be more efficient, I have a bridge to sell you.

If you think acknowledging that fact (and the fact that there’s really not a great way to make LLMs more efficient) is “apologetics”, I cannot engage with you in good faith.

Ok, so LLMs cant be more wfficient....wat

The thing is: most people don't want to pay for good software. For any software.

And on top of that bug fixes and efficiency gains are never a top priority, only new features and redesign are pushed forward.

Explains AI perfectly.

Bizarre how some commentors have rose colored glasses, like AI isn't exponentially bloat.

And I for one welcome our new AI overlords!

Seriously though... I think most uses of LLMs are pretty stupid, but it seems like we're in the bubble and the only way people can continue to make money is by doubling down on AI spending. Or at least that's the only way they think they can make money.

So... sorry for leaving you with that impression. Maybe the only way to get to the post AI hype world is to give AI companies everything they want so they fail faster.

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!" ( see https://economicsociology.org/2014/10/07/yes-the-planet-got-... )

Does anyone deserve RAM though?

I was just pointing out the weirdness of AI bloat and complaint about application bloat....it's not irony...it's like, the zeitgeist.

lol. yes. I am behind the times complaining about app bloat. I should be complaining about LLM bloat. But I have enough bile in me to complain about both.

well, one of them just demands you get another 32GB stick of ram. The other wants you to pay for it's high voltage power lines, give it millions of gallons of water and provide zero benefits to the local community.

If bloat was given human form, it's definitely LLMs and their corporate financiers.

As long as javascript developers don't care about memory usage, I'm not sure what anyone can do.

I mean, for goodness sake, an empty YouTube page with no videos eats up a shocking amount of memory - 90 MB just for the js heap. I used to run Windows 3.1 on a machine with 8 MB of RAM.

Admittedly, a good amount of memory used with browsers is because of larger graphics buffers that go along with higher resolution monitors, but much is just... waste.

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