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People couldn't sell adverts? Working on PouchDB I spent a good amount of time thinking about how to "sell" local / offline first apps. It seemed a lot to me l

People couldn't sell adverts? Working on PouchDB I spent a good amount of time thinking about how to "sell" local / offline first apps. It seemed a lot to me like the problem was plain old capitalism, offline / local first software is faster / and more robust, for most circumstances its a better decision for the user. However the economic incentives arent there to build the best software, the economic incentives are to slow webpages to a crawl with adverts and planned obsolescence.

Nasrudith 6y ago
Slowing to a crawl is counterproductive greed essentially as it repels the user base and doesn't aid sales. Google won out with text adds as opposed to "punch the monkey" autoplay banner crap. Aside from that there is the issue of portability which comes with the power - namely supporting everything and barrier to entry. But the bigger difference is probably convenience. Web typically needs no install and less commitment and gives a single set of servers to work on for everybody. Take a general referral/word of mouth. Web has more or less "go to the URL and try it with no commmitments or extra steps" and web shopping found not needing to register was crucial for people actually trying. Now compare local first "Hey you should try and download Notepad++/git/etc." And that is before IT policies or licenses get involved which can mean a certain segment get a hard block they wouldn't for a web service unless they specifically decided that say "pastebin is a hard no" and then missed that the new hotness is say clipboard.com anyway. We had an approach which tried for its own best of both worlds with its own sandbox and that was in browser Java applets.
- daleharvey 6y ago
  I dont consider the web and offline first / local software to be mutually exlusive. PouchDB is a database built on web technology in order to enable offline capabilities to web sites / apps, Service workers handle caching static assets reasonably easily.
lytefm 6y ago
Thanks for maintaining PouchDB, it's an amazing library! But true, if our customers wouldn't pay for our app and we'd have had to resort to ads instead, offline first wouldn't have been been a priority, perhaps not an option at all.

Nasrudith 6y ago

Slowing to a crawl is counterproductive greed essentially as it repels the user base and doesn't aid sales. Google won out with text adds as opposed to "punch the monkey" autoplay banner crap. Aside from that there is the issue of portability which comes with the power - namely supporting everything and barrier to entry. But the bigger difference is probably convenience. Web typically needs no install and less commitment and gives a single set of servers to work on for everybody. Take a general referral/word of mouth. Web has more or less "go to the URL and try it with no commmitments or extra steps" and web shopping found not needing to register was crucial for people actually trying. Now compare local first "Hey you should try and download Notepad++/git/etc." And that is before IT policies or licenses get involved which can mean a certain segment get a hard block they wouldn't for a web service unless they specifically decided that say "pastebin is a hard no" and then missed that the new hotness is say clipboard.com anyway. We had an approach which tried for its own best of both worlds with its own sandbox and that was in browser Java applets.

daleharvey 6y ago
I dont consider the web and offline first / local software to be mutually exlusive. PouchDB is a database built on web technology in order to enable offline capabilities to web sites / apps, Service workers handle caching static assets reasonably easily.

lytefm 6y ago

Thanks for maintaining PouchDB, it's an amazing library! But true, if our customers wouldn't pay for our app and we'd have had to resort to ads instead, offline first wouldn't have been been a priority, perhaps not an option at all.