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0 pointsnyanpasu643y ago0 comments

Blame web developers. There's no money in making web pages simple enough to be delivered to the client as fully functional hypertext without running arbitrary code. All the money is in stalking users across the app, forcing them to watch ads and navigate paywalls, and denying service to any ad blocker they feel like "for their survival" (and also some other reasons).

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afavour3y ago

Oh, come on. Don't pretend like there are zero web apps with useful functionality. Or would you prefer Google Maps shut down and we all go back to Yahoo Maps where we click an arrow button that reloads the entire page with a new map tile displayed?

tjoff3y ago

Oh yes. Not the slightest hyperbole. That would be amazing.

What we have now really is a tragedy of the commons situation.

edit: Google maps (or equivalent) is a true game-changer that has a lot of value and one of the very few websites with actual value from javascript. But, we could just use Google Earth as a separate application for it. Just as we did in the early days when google maps on the web was a poor fit.

Very small price to pay.

afavour3y ago

But Google Earth was a terrible app with inconsistent UI! To my mind it’s one of the posterchildren of why making crossplatform native apps often ends up a total mess.

I feel like when everyone says “this should be a native app” their imagined app is absolutely flawless and integrates seamlessly on every OS. But reality has rarely matched that ideal.

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jakelazaroff3y ago

Let’s take Google Docs as an example. A word processor where you can collaboratively edit a file with someone simply by sharing a link, without requiring anyone to install an application. How do you do this without the web and JavaScript?

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modeless3y ago

This is a total non sequitur in the context of the question implied by the top level comment, which is about why native app platforms haven't fixed some crucial issues that the web solved a long time ago.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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afavour3y ago

tjoff3y ago

Oh yes. Not the slightest hyperbole. That would be amazing.

What we have now really is a tragedy of the commons situation.

Very small price to pay.

afavour3y ago

But Google Earth was a terrible app with inconsistent UI! To my mind it’s one of the posterchildren of why making crossplatform native apps often ends up a total mess.

I feel like when everyone says “this should be a native app” their imagined app is absolutely flawless and integrates seamlessly on every OS. But reality has rarely matched that ideal.

1 more reply

jakelazaroff3y ago

1 more reply

modeless3y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse