On mobile platforms, app don't use polling loops for that sort of stuff, precisely so that power usage could be optimized. Time for something similar for the web?
Arent notifications same thing with only difference that they go through apple/google centralized server so your phone doesnt have to listen for multiple servers but just one?
A simple short-term workaround would a setInterval equivalent that can be set to "every so often" instead of a hard number, leaving it up to the browser or OS to coalesce updates into chunks of activity every so often.
Many services use an open tcp connection (e.g. websocket) rather than polling. Mobile platforms are doing the same thing, just on a system level. I guess service workers are the closest web analogue.
