The web changed.

I remember quite clearly (not the date thereof, but the experience) the time when suddenly the loading skeletons appeared

And websites were suddenly… slower. Or so it felt. Because there was this new limbo state

and they all started using up tons of memory and making the computer chug (before browsers started putting tabs to sleep)

And that’s when I learned of the existence of (or when they started building) task managers just for the browser

Now like, it’s a shift - there used to be an obvious loading ‘throbber’ in browsers (yes, that’s what they’re called - like the lovely Netscape comets), and you’d watch that until the page loaded, then you’d see the page progressively load down the screen

Now, it feels wrong, like it’s broken, if the page skeleton doesn’t pop up immediately. And the throbbers are just… gone?

But we’re still waiting…