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0 pointsmahidhar6y ago0 comments

Unfortunately, I must agree with you that there are definitely some very troubling implications to how WebAssembly might be used to build more effective walled gardens on the web.

I can easily imagine a "platform" WASM module which acts as a runtime for other WASM modules built by "app" developers. This Platform module can be easily cached by FAANG or other big commercial interests, similar to AMP by Google (maybe even be pre-bundled into the browser?). The only way to discover, download and run these other apps is through this curated Platform module. All this could be rendered through something like the Canvas API instead of the DOM, which again is managed on a low level by the Platform and in turn exposes higher level API's for the Apps. The Platform also has built in support for Ad networks, tracking, etc., which cannot be disabled without disabling the whole ecosystem of apps. And of course, like any good play/app store, it is completely incompatible with anything else, leading to new levels of Balkanization of the web.

I hope that this isn't the case, and I'm completely wrong about this. But I just can't shake the feeling that as a community, we are championing WebAssembly as purely a performance win, without considering how big commercial interests might seek to exploit this new technology.

Edit: typo with AMP

0 comments

oaiey6y ago

This platform wasm will come. And it does not You do not need to be evil, especially in the beginning. Java or .NET Runtime and Libraries are a bit heavy for a small web page.

And from there it is just the next step to run a base platform like Android user space or a simple runtime like blazor.

In the end wasm is a runtime. There were physical Java Processors and I am pretty sure there will be webassembly processors.

lightgreen6y ago

There were not physical Java processors, because it’s too hard to emulate jvm in hardware. But there were processors with instructions optimized for interpreting jvm bytecode. These would be pretty useless nowadays (for either jvm or wasm) because baseline compiler which translates vm bytecode to native bytecode is easy and more efficient than direct vm support in hardware.

salawat6y ago

Delete this!!!

Thanks for dooming us all, hombre. I'm holding you personally responsible when it happens.

In fact I think it may already have. Took a look at a web based learning portal for my niece the other day, and after poking around in devtoolsfound it was pretty similar to what you described.

api6y ago

This would be no different from an app, just delivered via web. So not really anything new.

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