Comment by bloppe
1 year ago
Once upon a time, people installed applications. You installed skype. You installed AIM. You installed iTunes. You installed Microsoft Office.
Now, you go to zoom.com, or messenger.com, or open.spotify.com, or docs.google.com. You don't have to install and constantly update desktop apps because you can load an always-up-to-date webpage in 500 milliseconds. PWAs have access to desktop notifications, serial ports, your local filesystem, etc. They can do everything desktop apps can. With WASM, they can even handle high-performance workloads. The web is just a better way to distribute software.
IMO, operating systems should go all-in on web apps. ChromeOS basically does that. The capyloon project [1] aims to do that for mobile devices. There should be no downloadable apps. "App stores" should just be CDNs. Browser caching can enable offline use. There's no technical reason why the web can't be just as user-friendly as downloadable apps. It's just culture.
And, hopefully making the web more usable would also soften the power of the platform silos.
> Now, you go to zoom.com, or messenger.com, or open.spotify.com, or docs.google.com.
The web was designed for documents and form. Everything else feels like rudimentary solutions which barely get to what native desktop UI is capable of. And the latter is better designed. Web apps are ok if you want a good enough solution (good for business, I guess) but worse for customers.
Most people use only a handful of tools, and only on few devices. Trying to build something to work for everyone result in something that is worse than a solution crafted for that particular platform.
There is no technical reason we can't eat soup with a fork. It's just culture.