Well, the same problems that beset big enterprise are also found in "big publishing" which is even more severely amplified by the need to have everything live yesterday.
> Given the wide array of compression tools, caching (including service workers on >40% of browsers, appcache on >90% and pretty much everyone having HTTP caching) and the sheer amount of information on improving website performance that's out there, making news websites load fast really should be a solved problem that doesn't need Google to solve it.
Correct, but you are assuming that most developers are a) interested in learning these things b) possess even the fundamental of CS knowledge and skills. By reading HN, I would assume that both a and b apply to the majority here, however, in my own cynical outlook, most "developers" are really just out there winging it and cannot be bothered to learn more than what's provided on w3schools.com.