Speed as Strategy: Why Performance is a Product Manager’s Best Friend
In economics, we study opportunity cost. In frontend development, we study latency. They are the same thing.
Every millisecond a user waits for your app to load is a "tax" on their attention span. If that tax gets too high, they churn. As a Product Engineer, I don't just look at Lighthouse scores as vanity metrics—I look at them as revenue indicators.
The "100ms" Rule
Amazon found that every 100ms of latency cost them 1% in sales. Google found that an extra 0.5 seconds in search page generation dropped traffic by 20%.
When I build a feature, I ask three questions:
- Does this spark joy? (UX)
- Does this solve a problem? (Product)
- Does the "weight" of this feature justify the "wait" for the user? (Performance Economics)
Why I Moved to Next.js (The Business Case)
My decision to migrate this portfolio from a client-side SPA (Vite) to Next.js wasn't just about using the latest tech. It was a calculated move to improve First Contentful Paint (FCP).
- Client-Side Rendering (CSR): The browser downloads a blank page, then a huge JS bundle, then renders. The user stares at a white screen. Result: High bounce rate.
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR): The server sends a fully formed HTML page instantly. Result: Immediate perceived value.
Optimizing for the "Next" User
Technical debt isn't just bad code; it's a bad product strategy.
By obsessing over Core Web Vitals—optimizing images to WebP, lazy-loading heavy components, and code-splitting routes—I am respecting the user's time.
In a crowded market, you don't always win by having the most features. Sometimes, you win simply by being the fastest to solve the problem.