I feel like you're conflating a few different things here.
Small pages and interactions are good, sure, but I don't really see a tension between this and local first. My homepage is static HTML (minus google analytics) and it works offline.
The multi-mb JS bundle is also a red herring. The only multi-mb JS bundle I ever worked with did not work offline at all. Feel this is orthogonal.
Also connectivity for people is usually something that changes with time. You have it in the farmhouse, but not out in the field. You have it at the office, but not on the road. So downloading stuff when you have connectivity and still being able to read/write what you don't is the real aim of the game here.
If you're using browser APIs to do lean local interactions, then good for you. Gold star. Fully approved. That's not what I've been seeing recently from the people around me who are most excited about this stuff.
And you're right about how connectivity changes over time. But how many people are on their bikes when applying for unemployment insurance? I just don't think most business apps benefit from this level of offline support. There are of course use cases for this! But it's not the common case.
And you're right, if it's OK to not be able to read or write during a network partition - then you don't need this. But I would encourage everyone out there to figure it out first as bolting it on after the fact is a real challenge.
Small pages and interactions are good, sure, but I don't really see a tension between this and local first. My homepage is static HTML (minus google analytics) and it works offline.
The multi-mb JS bundle is also a red herring. The only multi-mb JS bundle I ever worked with did not work offline at all. Feel this is orthogonal.
Also connectivity for people is usually something that changes with time. You have it in the farmhouse, but not out in the field. You have it at the office, but not on the road. So downloading stuff when you have connectivity and still being able to read/write what you don't is the real aim of the game here.