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The web went in the wrong direction when we abandoned the initial concepts of user agents, which was that the browser has the ultimate choice of what to render

The web went in the wrong direction when we abandoned the initial concepts of user agents, which was that the browser has the ultimate choice of what to render and how. That concept, transferred to today's world of apps would simply mean that any client like Apollo is essentially a browser locked on Reddit's website, parsing HTML (which has the role of an API) and rendering the content in a native interface. As long as the user can access the HTML for free, they should be able to use any application (a browser or a special app) and render the content however they wish. Unfortunately with today's SPA apps we don't even get the HTML directly, but with the recent resurgence of server-side rendering we may soon be able to get rendered HTML with one HTTP request. And then the only hurdles will be legal.

leros 3y ago
Seems like you could still a meta UI that drives the underlying SPA in a hidden browser but it would be a pain. Maybe a framework for that will be built one day
- bearjaws 3y ago
  Seems like we're always missing a fusion of: 1. SPA that you can run on your phone or desktop 2. Centralized User Management, need some way to block known bad actors 3. Signing posts / comments 4. Distribution of posts and comments over DHT? 5. Hosting images, videos and lengthy text posts on torrents 6. A whack ton of content moderation software to somehow make decentralized moderation work. 7. Image recognition for gore / CP that inevitably will get spammed This would enable people to help host the subreddits they are subscribed to, but murder battery life on mobile unfortunately.
numpad0 3y ago
App Store. It’s the App Store and iPhone that killed the web.
DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> Unfortunately with today's SPA apps we don't even get the HTML directly It works the other way: with today's SPAs the API (that powers the frontend) is exposed for us to use directly, without going through the HTML - just use your browser's devtools to inspect the network/fetch/XHR requests and build your own client. ----- On an related-but-unrelated note: I don't know why so many website companies aren't allowing users to pay to use their own client: it's win-win-win: the service operator gets new revenue to make-up for the lack of ads in third-party clients, it doesn't cost the operator anything (because their web-services and APIs are already going to be well-documented, right?), and makes the user/consumer-base happy because they can use a specialized client. Where would Twitter be today if we could continue to use Tweetbot and other clients with our own single-user API-key or so?
- poyu 3y ago
  > Where would Twitter be today if we could continue to use Tweetbot and other clients with our own single-user API-key or so? So like OAuth? IIRC Twitter used that with all the 3rd party clients. I think the problem is that 3rd party clients filters out ad posts one way or the other. Your other point still stands though, just charge the user API access.
- nomel 3y ago
  > inspect the network/fetch/XHR requests and build your own client The purpose of an API is the agreement, more than the access. You can always reverse engineer something, but your users won't be too happy when things randomly stop working, whenever reddit chooses.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Total non-issue. If it breaks, people will fix it. There's people out there maintaining immense ad filter lists and executable countermeasures against ad blocker detection. Someone somewhere will care enough to fix it.
    - chromoblob 3y ago
      There are only so many programmers, who will fix the client, per 1 person. This fraction, when inverted, will be a rough threshold for the client's audience size for continued fixes to be there.
      - matheusmoreira 3y ago
        And yet these people somehow maintain immense amounts of ad blocking filters and code, including active counter measures which require reverse engineering web site javascripts. I gotta wonder what would happen if they started making custom clients for each website instead.
        chromoblob 3y ago
teej 3y ago
There was a 15 year period where many websites were only compatible with Internet Explorer. The dream of clients in control is worth fighting for, but it’s never been reality.
paulcole 3y ago
> As long as the user can access the HTML for free, they should be able to use any application (a browser or a special app) and render the content however they wish. You can see how the end game of this is HTML no longer being free, right?
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  The worse case vision I have of the future internet in one in which content and advertising is hosted by the advertising companies and rendered via a web assembly system. Content and advertising cannot be separated by IP and the site content is basically an application that is difficult to parse.
renewiltord 3y ago
There's free API access with a client of your own. You just can't distribute a single client that intermediates the site: thereby not being a user agent so much as its own site. If you use your own client_id and OAuth2, you get 100 req/min which is enough to browse.
makeitdouble 3y ago
> the browser has the ultimate choice of what to render and how Fundamentally you're advocating for a web that doesn't rely on ad money. I'm totally with you, but the discussion should probably expand beyond the web and to why our society generate so much ad money in the first place. What should we do to free our societies from ad money ?
codethief 3y ago
> parsing HTML (which has the role of an API) and rendering the content in a native interface That's a nice dream but the reality is that HTML would be a really bad API, even worse than SOAP.
interlinked 3y ago
Why can't these apps just use the api that reddit.com uses? How could the servers differentiate between reddit.com and apollo app pretending to be reddit.com to the server?

leros 3y ago

Seems like you could still a meta UI that drives the underlying SPA in a hidden browser but it would be a pain. Maybe a framework for that will be built one day

bearjaws 3y ago
Seems like we're always missing a fusion of: 1. SPA that you can run on your phone or desktop 2. Centralized User Management, need some way to block known bad actors 3. Signing posts / comments 4. Distribution of posts and comments over DHT? 5. Hosting images, videos and lengthy text posts on torrents 6. A whack ton of content moderation software to somehow make decentralized moderation work. 7. Image recognition for gore / CP that inevitably will get spammed This would enable people to help host the subreddits they are subscribed to, but murder battery life on mobile unfortunately.

numpad0 3y ago

App Store. It’s the App Store and iPhone that killed the web.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago

> Unfortunately with today's SPA apps we don't even get the HTML directly It works the other way: with today's SPAs the API (that powers the frontend) is exposed for us to use directly, without going through the HTML - just use your browser's devtools to inspect the network/fetch/XHR requests and build your own client. ----- On an related-but-unrelated note: I don't know why so many website companies aren't allowing users to pay to use their own client: it's win-win-win: the service operator gets new revenue to make-up for the lack of ads in third-party clients, it doesn't cost the operator anything (because their web-services and APIs are already going to be well-documented, right?), and makes the user/consumer-base happy because they can use a specialized client. Where would Twitter be today if we could continue to use Tweetbot and other clients with our own single-user API-key or so?

poyu 3y ago
> Where would Twitter be today if we could continue to use Tweetbot and other clients with our own single-user API-key or so? So like OAuth? IIRC Twitter used that with all the 3rd party clients. I think the problem is that 3rd party clients filters out ad posts one way or the other. Your other point still stands though, just charge the user API access.
nomel 3y ago
> inspect the network/fetch/XHR requests and build your own client The purpose of an API is the agreement, more than the access. You can always reverse engineer something, but your users won't be too happy when things randomly stop working, whenever reddit chooses.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Total non-issue. If it breaks, people will fix it. There's people out there maintaining immense ad filter lists and executable countermeasures against ad blocker detection. Someone somewhere will care enough to fix it.
  - chromoblob 3y ago
    There are only so many programmers, who will fix the client, per 1 person. This fraction, when inverted, will be a rough threshold for the client's audience size for continued fixes to be there.
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      And yet these people somehow maintain immense amounts of ad blocking filters and code, including active counter measures which require reverse engineering web site javascripts. I gotta wonder what would happen if they started making custom clients for each website instead.
      - chromoblob 3y ago

teej 3y ago

There was a 15 year period where many websites were only compatible with Internet Explorer. The dream of clients in control is worth fighting for, but it’s never been reality.

paulcole 3y ago

> As long as the user can access the HTML for free, they should be able to use any application (a browser or a special app) and render the content however they wish. You can see how the end game of this is HTML no longer being free, right?

NovaDudely 3y ago
The worse case vision I have of the future internet in one in which content and advertising is hosted by the advertising companies and rendered via a web assembly system. Content and advertising cannot be separated by IP and the site content is basically an application that is difficult to parse.

renewiltord 3y ago

There's free API access with a client of your own. You just can't distribute a single client that intermediates the site: thereby not being a user agent so much as its own site. If you use your own client_id and OAuth2, you get 100 req/min which is enough to browse.

makeitdouble 3y ago

> the browser has the ultimate choice of what to render and how Fundamentally you're advocating for a web that doesn't rely on ad money. I'm totally with you, but the discussion should probably expand beyond the web and to why our society generate so much ad money in the first place. What should we do to free our societies from ad money ?

codethief 3y ago

> parsing HTML (which has the role of an API) and rendering the content in a native interface That's a nice dream but the reality is that HTML would be a really bad API, even worse than SOAP.

interlinked 3y ago

Why can't these apps just use the api that reddit.com uses? How could the servers differentiate between reddit.com and apollo app pretending to be reddit.com to the server?