Service workers promise speed, offline support, and control.
In reality, they also promise confusion — if you don’t need them.
I added one to make my site “modern.”
What I got instead were redirect loops, stale pages, broken auth, and hours of debugging things I didn’t even mean to build.
The fix wasn’t clever.
I removed it.
Performance improved.
Bugs disappeared.
My mental load dropped to zero.
The lesson stuck with me:
If a feature adds more surface area than value, it’s not an upgrade — it’s debt.
Sometimes the most senior move is deleting code.
In reality, they also promise confusion — if you don’t need them.
I added one to make my site “modern.”
What I got instead were redirect loops, stale pages, broken auth, and hours of debugging things I didn’t even mean to build.
The fix wasn’t clever.
I removed it.
Performance improved.
Bugs disappeared.
My mental load dropped to zero.
The lesson stuck with me:
If a feature adds more surface area than value, it’s not an upgrade — it’s debt.
Sometimes the most senior move is deleting code.