I don’t think people are worried about storing hundreds of Signal instances, this isn’t a photo backup.
The concerns are bloat, optimisation, and memory usage.
That’s the point. The storage is a bad metric. While it might indicate poor performance, it’s not a direct indication of poor performance. The bloat and optimization comes from the usage of Electron. And people use Electron because it’s far easier to make cross-platform deployments for Web and desktop using a framework like Electron. Show me the QT/JavaFX app that mimics Signal and we can compare the cost to develop it. Electron isn’t the best choice for memory usage and reducing bloat, but it’s the best choice for quick development (in my opinion but also proven out by the market share it has)
there is an inevitable cost to written code though, it simply cannot be computed away. In this case the cost is just a shitty application with an even shittier user experience.
Harddrives start at 16€/TB, so 500MB would be 0.008€. SSDs start at 50€/TB, so it would be 0.025€ or two-and-a-half cents
I don’t think people are worried about storing hundreds of Signal instances, this isn’t a photo backup.
The concerns are bloat, optimisation, and memory usage.
Also, HDDs can go from $7.5/TB
That’s the point. The storage is a bad metric. While it might indicate poor performance, it’s not a direct indication of poor performance. The bloat and optimization comes from the usage of Electron. And people use Electron because it’s far easier to make cross-platform deployments for Web and desktop using a framework like Electron. Show me the QT/JavaFX app that mimics Signal and we can compare the cost to develop it. Electron isn’t the best choice for memory usage and reducing bloat, but it’s the best choice for quick development (in my opinion but also proven out by the market share it has)
Why are you installing Signal Desktop on your phone?
You got me there
yes but think about how much money writing 500MB worth of code would cost.
I realize it’s not all code, and some of it is already written, but please, muse me, and do the math for it.
Writing less code costs more money. The programm is large because they slapped some existing stuff together instead of writing everything from scratch
there is an inevitable cost to written code though, it simply cannot be computed away. In this case the cost is just a shitty application with an even shittier user experience.