A Modern Tortoise Story

JPEG didn’t start as the Internet’s favorite.

In the early days, NCSA Mosaic - one of the first web browsers - only supported GIFs. But by 1995, JPEG slipped into Netscape… and never looked back.

So, why did that happen?

Because it aged gracefully.

Unlike GIFs, which fall apart when compressed, JPEGs degrade like memories - blurry, but still beautiful. That one trait, graceful degradation, helped JPEG scale from dial-up days to DSLR-grade photos.

And the core of all this?

Collaboration.

JPEG was built by a committee - the Joint Photographic Experts Group.

A true standard: debated, documented, refined.

The result?

A 600-page blueprint that worked for everyone - from Canon to AT&T.

What does that teach us?

One genius can spark an idea.

But shared ownership builds longevity.

JPEG wasn’t chasing perfection - it aimed for approximation.

Using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), it threw away what’s unnecessary and kept what matters. Like a melody on a cheap radio - slightly off, but still moves you.

When Unisys tried to monetize GIFs in the '90s, the world turned to JPEG. It was mostly patent-free… until Forgent Networks tried their luck. They squeezed $100 million before the courts pulled the plug.

JPEG outlived them, too.

Why?

Because open standards outlast legal traps.

Better tools exist—WebP, AVIF, HEIC.

But still you have at least one JPEG in your gallery.

Not every survivor is the strongest.

Sometimes, the tortoise wins.

And JPEG?

It’s one of those tortoises.

Originally shared on LinkedIn