Lazy loading isn't just lazy, it's late: the web deserves faster.

For time immemorial web developers have been guided to focus on minimising bandwidth consumption. Or, comparatively recently, loading content users can see as early as possible and by definition not loading contents users can't see, this is colloquially known as lazy-loading.

But it's just that: lazy. We tend only to fetch more content as the user scrolls it into view or navigates to the next page, which isn't just lazy: it's often late and an awful user experience.

It's fair to suggest lazy-loading is primarily designed to ensure your initial site load is fast and not a morsel of bandwidth or compute is wasted on anything that could put your Core Web Vitals into the amber or - heaven forbid - the red. Which is perfectly reasonable and eminently sensible.

But, what next? What happens when a user moves to the next route? Core Web Vitals can't measure a soft-navigation (for now) and ergo we don't talk about what comes next nearly enough.

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