Eh. If one wants to play the blame game, we can be here all day. The marketing dept asking to add sharing widgets are to blame. The team lead pushing for Squarespace so they can get away hiring junior devs under them is to blame. The frontend dev using half of the React ecosystem on a static site + simple form is to blame. The designer insisting on huge eye candy images is to blame. The UX person set on adding a carousel is to blame. The project manager prioritizing feature count is to blame. Etc etc etc.
The bottom line is that nobody really has any strong incentives to advocate for performance, so it falls by the sidelines.
The bottom line is that nobody really has any strong incentives to advocate for performance, so it falls by the sidelines.