Why "Optimize Your Images" Is Bad Advice

I think a lot of founders hear "optimize your images" and still do not know what that means in practice. Usually it is some mix of wrong format, wrong dimensions, duplicate exports, hero image too heavy. Not bad code, just bad file decisions that nobody thought about at launch. I kept hitting the same cleanup on different projects. The steps were always the same: find the bloated images, figure out which ones are safe to convert, which ones need manual review, and which ones you should not touch