
We bought a successful app, loaded it with extras and watched it fail - razin
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13151432/app-size-calculator-bloat-experiment-developers-segment
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nesadi
Interesting mini-experiment. I feel like it's missing a step or two between 3
and 99. You might also do this with more than one app with similar activity
and beginning sizes, and only measure the change from one increase.

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pixelbath
Unless your app has most of its content _contained within the app_ , I can't
even imagine how you get to the mindset in thinking 100MB for a phone app is
normal.

Looking at their breakdown of the Olympic app, I can see using some of that
space for media since you don't want to pull all the images over-the-air every
time, but 16 MB just for fonts? How do fonts take up more space than the
embedded video?

The only apps I've downloaded that broke 30 MB or so have all been games that
use local textures and geometry (and likely came from Unity). If I see an app
which isn't a game taking over maybe 30 MB, it's an instant cancellation for
me. I think mobile developers can afford to spend a little more effort on
optimization instead of pretending it's another platform with limitless
resources.

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caryd
What a completely out-of-touch and borderline unethical experiment.

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casion
What would be unethical about it.

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MrEldritch
They took a useful thing that was providing value to people, and broke it for
no other reason than to see how people reacted.

I mean, it's not _that_ unethical; that's a big word to be throwing around.
It's just kind of a dick move.

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rumanator
> They took a useful thing that was providing value to people, and broke it
> for no other reason than to see how people reacted.

You're pretty much describing the foundation of science: breakig stuff that's
working just to see what happens.

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jolmg
It being science doesn't mean it can't be unethical. I'm sure there are loads
of biological experiments we could be doing that most would consider
unethical.

That said, I don't think I'd call this particular experiment unethical,
because it was a free mortgage calculator app and I can't imagine people
depending that much on it. Calling it a dick move seems more apt. Then again,
who knows...

