Ending Responsive Images

Lazy-loading images has fundamentally changed the responsive images problem. The classic race condition — where browsers must choose an image source before knowing the page layout — only applies to images in the initial viewport. For below-the-fold images using `loading="lazy"`, the browser already knows the image size when it downloads, enabling `sizes="auto"` support now shipping in all major browsers. Going further, Responsive Image Client Hints (a draft spec) allow removing `srcset` entirely: the server receives the exact rendered image width via HTTP headers and can serve the right size dynamically. For browsers lacking Client Hints (Firefox, Safari), a small blocking JavaScript polyfill by Eric Portis achieves the same result for Cloudinary users. The conclusion: most images on the web can now use dramatically simpler markup, though above-the-fold images still require full `srcset`/`sizes` syntax.