Web applications serve content over a network connection that can vary considerably in connection speed. Developers who optimize the size and number of resources needed to serve their application, will see performance benefits for all their users, especially those having poor connections.
Compounding this, most users expect to see content from a website load in 2 seconds or less. Most users aren't aware of their network connection speed, so it's up to the developer to make an application load as fast as possible to keep up with user expectations.
According to surveys done by Akamai and Gomez.com, nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds. 79% of web shoppers who have trouble with web site performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again and...