In some cases you might be able to avoid this problem by using paging or infinite scrolling, but sometimes that's just not good enough. For example, lists that are displaying only a few items at a time (like any kind of a log) would simply be very impractical from the users point of view. Another reason - you might be using libraries like SlyJS that load a whole list at once to calculate the size of the embedded scrollbar and to make list swiping and elastic bounds work properly. Ooooor - your client simply demands it. :)
Via Jan Hesse