Hacker News Reader

That method is adding server, client and network load by delivering multiple versions of the same image, whereas a cached version on the front end can be freely re-used and manipulated as needed based on the specifics of the device and browser. It's not a matter of being a problem for the front end team. It's a problem for devops and the end user.

View on HN

It hasn't been a problem for the backend or devop teams either.

The network load is... probably not something you, or me, can so offhandedly talk about here without the actual data. It depends a lot on which images are most used. I do know that they did in fact reduce a lot of bandwidth by serving pre-sized thumbnails instead of larger images. Typically there's only a few -3, 4- different sizes that matter; these can be -and are- cached by the browser. In this case, most visitors seemed to never need the full-size format, so that's a lot of saved bandwidth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com