As an engineering challenge, I love it.
Other than that, I would've understood this notion better in the 90's when we were all on dialups. Maybe my perception is skewed growing up and seeing in real-time a picture loading on a website?
Now, even with outdated hardware on an ok connection, even larger sites like WAPO (3MB) loads what I feel like instantly (within 5-10 seconds). If it loaded in 2 seconds or 1 second, I really don't know how that would impact my life in any way.
As long as a site isn't sluggish while you browse around.
Most of the time, and to a lot of people, it doesn't matter. I have a fast mobile data plan and fast home Internet. But even I have encountered the following circumstances where I wish sites were smaller:
- on an underground subway with slow and spotty connection
- on slow airplane WiFi
- on slow hotel WiFi
- on a slow mobile network while traveling internationally
My mobile phone's data connection isn't free. I'd prefer it not be wasted on sloppily-made websites.