20230921-webp.txt
I recently stumbled across a webp file. You know, those annoying
images that aren't recognized as images by most programs... even in
2023. I had to download a patch or update to Fim and/or Imagemagick
just to work with them. It's really annoying.
They have one advantage, and it's huge (or small): filesize. Webps
have very good compression. Hopefully you're reading this on Gopher,
so you should know the advantages of less bandwidth. I'm all in favor
of lighter loads on servers and browsers.
The catch, which I already gave away, is compatibility. Webp is
basically only viewable by normies in a web browser. It's supposedly
from a video codec called VP8 or VP9. I don't recall. But anyway, it's
just not friendly with existing programs. That is extremely lame. I
get that you're not going to be able to display images on an Altair
from the 1970s or whatever. But when a PC that's not even 10 years old
requires an update just to view a simple image, ya dun goofed.
It's similar to what I like to call the electric vehicle dilemma. I
live in an area that is not overflowing with Tesla charging centers
like California. I'm sure there are some around, and I've even seen a
Tesla or two in the wild. The problem is that there aren't many places
around to recharge and any long trip requires more planning to make
sure your car won't die in the middle of the road. Most of the world
is not ready with infrastructure to support heavy EV use by civilians,
at least. I've seen electric buses and I think some USPS trucks are
electric (just a guess), but that's it. Basically to refuel you're
almost required to charge the car overnight at home. That's not ideal,
especially for long trips. And even if you are overflowing with
charging stations, it at least takes 15 minutes to get a decent amount
of charge in the car versus a gas refill takes me roughly 2-3 minutes.
Are EVs better? Yes, IMO. Disregarding any manufacturing pollution,
which I've heard is not good, they're better. And while I agree
filesizes of webps are superior, they just are too restricted for me
to go and convert my image files to this webp format that is not
usable under most circumstances. And I'm really not sure I want to
adopt a whole different image format when JPG, GIF, and PNG work just
fine for my purposes, and they retain their malleability unlike webps.
At what point do filesize considerations trump interoperability? For
me, it's going to be JPG/GIF first (depending on "type" of picture)
and PNG second.
