As weird as it sounds, but even when performance is not a deal breaker for individual users, on high-traffic sites the sum of all energy wasted on unnecessary/unoptimized computations can become so large that it becomes an actual ecological concern. It's a completely new thing that we should keep an eye on.
Is it really when we literally waste countries’ energy usage on bitcoin and such? Computers are surprisingly low in energy consumption on the grand scale of things, especially compared to their usefulness.
Really? Only one application of computers --- Bitcoin --- wastes countries' energy usage and yet it doesn't make sense to optimize software for ecologic reasons?
No, but there are plenty much higher targets before going after computers, especially compared to the insane value they produce. Like, is that single server running all the logistics of a country’s train network “inefficiently” really significant compared to.. the inefficiency of even a single train?
Crypto uses vast energy as a feature, a side effect of maintaining a competitive environment as part of proof of work (other staking mechanisms are different). You could not optimize this to use less energy.
