In 1996 when it was a proposed idea the estimated cost was 500 million USD and the proposed launch was 2007. But the design kept getting more and more lofty and the project got more and more complex. The initial estimate was a bit off, it has cost about 9.6 billion USD so far.
Still though, if everything works and we learn more about the universe, I think it'll have been worth it.
There was a thread on here a while back where people would set up cameras and be able to make a motion image showing what parts moved with a regular frequency. Was being used at factories to determine points of failure via vibration. Can't find the thread now though.
"htmx is small (~10k min.gz'd)"
Maybe I'm crazy, but that sounds huge based on the list of features in the docs. Would be interesting to see a breakdown of the features and how much of that size they take up.
The difference is exactly that you wouldn't notice and the other person would. There's a difference between a recurring piece of media being a drop in the bucket and having a specific thing you look forward to watching or listening to every week. If one week you're waiting for it to drop and it's mysteriously absent you might suspect something is wrong.
Honestly, I think the other factor is having a good set of microphones trained on the audience. Sometimes what looks like a presenter pausing too early is really just the mics not picking up the milder scattered applause that then builds up and gets heard after they pause.
The whole thing is a production, and having a good setup can radically change people's experience of it.
I think what the parent was saying is important though, that 700mb of "data" isn't complete. It's basically just really really good compression that requires the runtime of our universe to work properly. The way proteins form and interact, the way physics works, etc are all requirements for that DNA to be able to realize itself as complex thinking human beings.
GIFs are inefficient and pretty resource intensive, if possible use video formats instead. Modern machines are optimized for running video so they work quite a bit better.
Still though, if everything works and we learn more about the universe, I think it'll have been worth it.