From 5b72895d41d3d7b2d6d75798a03d10b07cad3e7b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Anthony Lukach <anthonylukach@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2026 09:25:19 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] perf: drop globe texture preload hints from landing page

The two `<link rel="preload">` hints pulled 6.5MB of WebGL globe textures
into the critical window, ahead of the render-blocking stylesheet that
gates first paint. On a real-throttled 4G profile that stylesheet was
requested at 682ms but did not arrive until 5901ms.

The preloads had no upside to trade against that: LiveGlobe is
dynamic({ ssr: false }), so it mounts after hydration and requests the
textures itself regardless.

Measured with Lighthouse 13.4.1 (--throttling-method=devtools, mobile):

  FCP 6.1s -> 5.3s
  LCP 6.1s -> 5.3s

Refs #471
---
 src/app/(marketing)/page.tsx | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/app/(marketing)/page.tsx b/src/app/(marketing)/page.tsx
index ea5b022e..1caecd5a 100644
--- a/src/app/(marketing)/page.tsx
+++ b/src/app/(marketing)/page.tsx
@@ -43,9 +43,9 @@ export default async function Landing() {
 
   return (
     <>
-      {/* Preload globe textures so they're cached before the client component mounts */}
-      <link rel="preload" href="/img/earth-blue-marble.jpg" as="image" />
-      <link rel="preload" href="/img/clouds.png" as="image" />
+      {/* ponytail: no texture preload — LiveGlobe is dynamic({ ssr: false }), so it
+          mounts after hydration anyway. Preloading pulled 6.5MB into the critical
+          window ahead of the render-blocking CSS that gates first paint. */}
       <Box className={styles.landing} px={{ sm: "6", lg: "9" }}>
         <Box className={styles.landingInner} mx="auto" maxWidth="1400px">
           <Navigation />