- Uses almost 1GB of memory ( https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4374976/screenshots/gmail.png )
- Used by 1 / 16th of the world population. ( http://thetechjournal.com/tech-news/industry-news/do-you-know-how-many-people-uses-gmail-and-google-apps-now.xhtml )
- In contrast, the total size of all article texts on Wikipedia is 9GB compressed. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download )
That particular gmail tab was just a result of my normal work use after only a couple of days, it didn't even have images in the thread.
If we can fit more information about the whole universe than anybody has ever had in all of history, there is no way that it would take 1/9th of that much information just to handle my own petty little conversations.
Then something is very wrong with the state of web development.
If you could use 1GB of memory for one tab of your web app without complaint (or utterly bogging down your user's computer)... what would you do? Discuss.