I can buy something, pay using a number of different standardised mechanisms (debit card details, Apple/Google Pay, other web services like PayPal) and have it

I can buy something, pay using a number of different standardised mechanisms (debit card details, Apple/Google Pay, other web services like PayPal) and have it quoted for shipping from almost anywhere in the world to my house with just a few presses in a mobile browser or on my laptop. There are a huge number of moving parts involved in providing that experience and it is fairly consistent between large tech players and small. It might not be flashy stuff like a nice replacement for JavaScript to make developers' lives easier, but a lot of my story above depends on significant advancement in web standards plus industry experience and consolidation. The web (as well as walled gardens like Apple and Google native) has been critical in enabling that. It's the bedrock for the entire digital economy, including many transactions that drive the physical economy. 15 years ago you couldn't even trust that the average user's browser had a decent fetch API. edit: I do agree that things have gotten slower and everything is terrible.