There were a few articles with actual content on this topic covered on Daring Fireball in recent months. Not sure what this blog blurb is adding to the conversation.
Yea, I wasn't trying to think too hard about the subject, I know there are many excellent posts out there already (like those linked above) that go into detail. I only wanted to show some actual download numbers to demonstrate how absurd it has become. Linking those other articles is a great idea, thanks for the feedback!
That second link about the FB app is hilarious. As an example, there are 3 copies of a 3.6 MB binary file used as part of an optical flow algorithm (likely for 360-degree videos)
So it's not just that there's a bit of sloppy (or pragmatically careless) packaging, but there's just a lot of stuff in these apps.
1. https://sensortower.com/blog/ios-app-size-growth
2. http://blog.timac.org/?p=1707
3. https://blog.halide.cam/one-weird-trick-to-lose-size-c0a4013...