5 ms·

Rise of the meta-platforms and the new 'web browser'

21 points by mmahemoff 11y ago

Detrus 11y ago
Yea, the browser based web keeps losing market share. First to mobile apps, now to dedicated document readers. Both performance problems. But the slow document problem is not very technical, mostly politics. There's no mechanism for enforcing requirements across a wild west of bloat. Flash's demise was for similar reasons. Bloat caused by over eager developers gained it a reputation for slow loading times and unusable websites. In this case the usable web is punished too.
- kinlan 11y ago
  Interesting thoughts. I wonder if Content Blockers or user-agent interventions can enforce requirements https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/qkKBfJv7ey4 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink... Also, Google Search did it for mobileness (pushing a down rank) on none mobile friendly site (for mobile users). Developers and businesses tend to see these as sticks and not carrots
jakub_g 11y ago
Regarding performance, I've noticed this weird attitude of some people that when I say, hey, I know how to make our mobile web faster, the answer is "users don't care" / "low prio". Those same people say, yeah, we need a native app, it will be so much more smooth, performant and everything!
- kinlan 11y ago
  What's the answer? Is it just wait it out?
  - thanatropism 11y ago
    STOP. USING. SO MUCH. CLIENT-SIDE. RENDERING.
byron_fast 11y ago
If the web can beat Microsoft in 1998, it will beat Apple as well. It doesn't look that way today, but the cracks are showing. I suppose if it became significantly easier to create an app than a website, the walled gardens could win, but that doesn't seem likely.
- kinlan 11y ago
  Author here. My thought around this is not that Apple will win, it is that there are other platforms now (hosted on Apple and Android platforms) that sit at the same level as the web sites and they have large audiences interacting with them daily. Facebook and WeChat in China are examples of this.
  - byron_fast 11y ago
    The weird thing about messaging is those platforms tend to be very fluid. They look dominant, but fade fast.

21 points by mmahemoff 11y ago

Yea, the browser based web keeps losing market share. First to mobile apps, now to dedicated document readers. Both performance problems. But the slow document problem is not very technical, mostly politics. There's no mechanism for enforcing requirements across a wild west of bloat. Flash's demise was for similar reasons. Bloat caused by over eager developers gained it a reputation for slow loading times and unusable websites. In this case the usable web is punished too.

kinlan 11y ago
Interesting thoughts. I wonder if Content Blockers or user-agent interventions can enforce requirements https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/qkKBfJv7ey4 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink... Also, Google Search did it for mobileness (pushing a down rank) on none mobile friendly site (for mobile users). Developers and businesses tend to see these as sticks and not carrots

jakub_g 11y ago

Regarding performance, I've noticed this weird attitude of some people that when I say, hey, I know how to make our mobile web faster, the answer is "users don't care" / "low prio". Those same people say, yeah, we need a native app, it will be so much more smooth, performant and everything!

kinlan 11y ago
What's the answer? Is it just wait it out?
- thanatropism 11y ago
  STOP. USING. SO MUCH. CLIENT-SIDE. RENDERING.

byron_fast 11y ago

If the web can beat Microsoft in 1998, it will beat Apple as well. It doesn't look that way today, but the cracks are showing. I suppose if it became significantly easier to create an app than a website, the walled gardens could win, but that doesn't seem likely.

kinlan 11y ago
Author here. My thought around this is not that Apple will win, it is that there are other platforms now (hosted on Apple and Android platforms) that sit at the same level as the web sites and they have large audiences interacting with them daily. Facebook and WeChat in China are examples of this.
- byron_fast 11y ago
  The weird thing about messaging is those platforms tend to be very fluid. They look dominant, but fade fast.