>>You are assuming the user needs to look at the records directly, but that is not the only way, it is possible you need that million records to build a 3D object representation to display in the screen, or to plot a graph which is at what the user will look
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>With a million data points?
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>In which case you can easily stream the data a record at time, no?
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>+++ Rick ---

Plus, there are other intelligent ways to handle large sets of data, including retrieving an initial subset that would be displayed and stream the remainder as resources allow. Seems like that's what some mapping sites do. You see a rough representaion, then it fills in the details.