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Well there is a case to be made that the web should not necessarily be a general computing platform. Or at least that there should be a separate mode in which i

Well there is a case to be made that the web should not necessarily be a general computing platform. Or at least that there should be a separate mode in which it assuredly is not because it is a hypertext platform instead. This use case has not disappeared just because the web grew additional capabilities. But it can feel as if the capability to act as a hypertext platform has disappeared, because you now have to worry about it doing things that are not aligned with this purpose. Remember, there is power in limitations, as type theory teaches us. And even for use cases where more than simple hypertext is needed, there is still a vast, nuanced chasm between that and full-blown Turing completeness.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Indeed : see also PDFs being (ab)used as a general computing platform.
lolinder 5y ago
In the end, any hypertext-mode solution is going to need to be client-based, because without robust client protections there's no incentive for a company to not just opt in to app mode. A limited form of this already exists—noscript. Browse with JS off, but add exceptions for true web apps. It should be possible to expand on this to create a middle ground where certain JS operations are allowed (say, DOM manipulation) but most are not (no network requests).
mftb 5y ago
You might want to investigate Gemini. It appears to be one response to the case you are presenting. It starts at the protocol level and they are starting to build up an ecosystem of servers and clients which are more hypertext focused (No JS, limitations on content-types, etc...). I believe the name Gemini was chosen to imply a middle-ground between Gopher and HTTP (Gemini was the NASA project between Mercury and Apollo).