If you are opening their app for the first time, it doesn't matter since you are going to download the content anyway. He has only one page, so navigation doesn't reload the content.
>Not using Gzip is obviously a big part of his marketing plan.
I think this is the only time I would use the words "FTFY" on HN, but I do think it's obvious, that with kim's bragging about bandwidth usage, gzip has been disabled intentionally.
He could just as easily make up a fake bandwidth usage number for marketing purposes rather than actually put unnecessary load on his servers by not using Gzip.
It's most likely down to him hiring sloppy developers. And judging by the source code on the site this is exactly the reason.
I thought these top bandwidth usage lists are compiled by ISPs, not site owners themselves.
In any case i don't think climbing those lists would be reason to disable gzip. In that case an easier method would be to just add lots of not rendered junk at the end of your html to beef up the data usage.
Not using Gzip is obviously a big mistake.