This article about the Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003, is a further illustration of problems on the Mobile Internet when dealing with Bandwidth issues. With the nature of the mobile web communication methods (GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, etc.) being more often costed on the bandwidth, and usage, rather than on a flat rate found in ADSL and Cable connections, this becomes a costly proposition.
Web 2.0 makes for easy universal ‘Application’ programming, but is inherently expensive to use as a consumer while on mobile web systems like Wap enabled phones and PDA’s. Even utilizing a mobile phone as a bluetooth modem and a laptop, Web 2.0 makes for expensive internet.
So the question remains, Who benefits most from Web 2? It surely isn’t the consumer.
I started out developing web pages, often testing against dialup speeds. Who does that now? Who tests their Web 2 apps against a slow GPRS connection or with the dialup connection many Irish folk still have to put up with? There is a vast marketplace out in the real world where broadband, or rather cheap broadband, handicaps Web 2.0 deployment.
This whole Web 2 experience convinces me further of the need to maintain, and further expand, traditional fat client Client Server application development into the mobile internet. As the internet continues to expand into convergent devices like the iPhone, Symbian and Palm OS based smart phones, Portable Media Players and connected PDP’, Web 2.0 will fail to fulfill the promise and the hype currently being displayed.