Newspaper websites are a good example of bloat, true. I think if you’re in the business of primarily serving text content and not doing much interactive stuff, you don’t need a heavy site. A lot of them tend to cram their websites with trackers and ads and I guess that’s a business thing.
Tbh, it’s unpopular around HN, but I felt like AMP was a great experience for users. AMP pages were super fast and had no annoying banners - and none of my pet peeve: layout shift.