Phil Howard writes:
By loading the images in parallel, with the initial part of the image files being a fuzzy approximation, you get to see about where every button is located, and in many cases you know exactly what it is, and you can click on them as soon as you know where to go.
By loading the images in parallel over multiple TCP connections, you also totally screw the TCP congestion avoidance mechanisms, and hurt the net as a whole, especially given how prevalent HTTP is these days. Unfortunately, as has been seen here, very few people working with the net these days actually understand the details of things the net depends on, and TCP congestion avoidance is one of them. HTTP 1.1 allows multiplexing in a single stream, and even (amazingly enough) ends up working faster in practice than multiple TCP connections. As I've noted, few people seem to understand this.
There is also a psychological perception of speed when images load in parallel. When someone complains about the slowness, and is given the low MTU solution, they often end up being happier.
I note that ignorance about what MTU means persists.
I still say the solution is a way to transmit multiple images in parallel over a single connection.
You mean, like HTTP 1.1? Perry