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The web is more than good enough. There's just a lot of people drinking the kool-aid and believing big tech's subtle and not so subtle messages about the web be

The web is more than good enough. There's just a lot of people drinking the kool-aid and believing big tech's subtle and not so subtle messages about the web being shite. Of course the web is shite on devices from companies that compete with the web. They actively undermine it.

troupo 2y ago
In my experience, the only people drinking kool-aid are those claiming that the web is good enough, and failing to deliver web apps that can do anything beyond the absolutely primitive stuff. With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> web is more than good enough For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
the web isn't shit per se. But it's horrible in the one way it matters to business; it is very hard to monetize web content compared to apps. That's a small part of why flash games quickly gave way to mobile. But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.
throwitaway1123 2y ago
The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps. I was playing Quake Live in the browser on a thermally throttled dual core laptop 15 years ago, but the hive mind here at HN will have you believe that the generic social media apps that dominate the charts all need to be "close to the metal": https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36 https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36
- troupo 2y ago
  Just because you played Quake doesn't mean the web is good for "vast majority of apps". The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape (that, and the absolute dearth of useful controls and utilities in the browser). You could of course build stuff with canvas/WebGPL/WebGPU, but then you have to reinvent the whole world from scratch because those are low-level (and in case of Canvas quite limited) APIs
  - throwitaway1123 2y ago
    > Just because you played Quake doesn't mean the web is good for "vast majority of apps" It means that at least 15 years ago it was more than powerful enough for all of the 2D Candy Crush style games which make up the overwhelming majority of mobile gaming apps. > The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape I've seen you repeat this phrase over and over again like a mantra on HN, but without examples I can't really gauge the performance problems you've run in to. The overwhelming majority of jank on the web that I've experienced is due to advertising bloatware (an adblocker is indispensable), and occasionally bad engineering (e.g. someone forgot to make an event listener passive, or isn't debouncing an event) not some inherent limitation of the platform. What are some examples of popular apps that you think require the full brunt of a modern chip? Every M3 iPad review I've watched ends up saying essentially the same thing: "this chip is powerful, but besides Geekbench benchmarks we have nothing to use it for".
    - lukeschlather 2y ago
      One thing I can quantify directly: in Zoom's native Windows app I can reply to a question and share my screen essentially instantly. That is to say I can do like "you can see here" and I've shared my screen before I've finished speaking, in the Google Meet PWA I have to say "here let me show you..." and pause while I wait for the screen share UI to load, I find the button to share the correct screen, and go. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Zoom saves me 5 minutes out of every 30 in meetings, in fact it might be conservative. And this isn't just a question of the chips (though native Zoom does make better use of it) but also display, audio input/output, even global keyboard shortcut handling.

troupo 2y ago

In my experience, the only people drinking kool-aid are those claiming that the web is good enough, and failing to deliver web apps that can do anything beyond the absolutely primitive stuff. With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> web is more than good enough For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

the web isn't shit per se. But it's horrible in the one way it matters to business; it is very hard to monetize web content compared to apps. That's a small part of why flash games quickly gave way to mobile. But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.

throwitaway1123 2y ago

The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps. I was playing Quake Live in the browser on a thermally throttled dual core laptop 15 years ago, but the hive mind here at HN will have you believe that the generic social media apps that dominate the charts all need to be "close to the metal": https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36 https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36

troupo 2y ago
Just because you played Quake doesn't mean the web is good for "vast majority of apps". The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape (that, and the absolute dearth of useful controls and utilities in the browser). You could of course build stuff with canvas/WebGPL/WebGPU, but then you have to reinvent the whole world from scratch because those are low-level (and in case of Canvas quite limited) APIs
- throwitaway1123 2y ago
  > Just because you played Quake doesn't mean the web is good for "vast majority of apps" It means that at least 15 years ago it was more than powerful enough for all of the 2D Candy Crush style games which make up the overwhelming majority of mobile gaming apps. > The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape I've seen you repeat this phrase over and over again like a mantra on HN, but without examples I can't really gauge the performance problems you've run in to. The overwhelming majority of jank on the web that I've experienced is due to advertising bloatware (an adblocker is indispensable), and occasionally bad engineering (e.g. someone forgot to make an event listener passive, or isn't debouncing an event) not some inherent limitation of the platform. What are some examples of popular apps that you think require the full brunt of a modern chip? Every M3 iPad review I've watched ends up saying essentially the same thing: "this chip is powerful, but besides Geekbench benchmarks we have nothing to use it for".
  - lukeschlather 2y ago
    One thing I can quantify directly: in Zoom's native Windows app I can reply to a question and share my screen essentially instantly. That is to say I can do like "you can see here" and I've shared my screen before I've finished speaking, in the Google Meet PWA I have to say "here let me show you..." and pause while I wait for the screen share UI to load, I find the button to share the correct screen, and go. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Zoom saves me 5 minutes out of every 30 in meetings, in fact it might be conservative. And this isn't just a question of the chips (though native Zoom does make better use of it) but also display, audio input/output, even global keyboard shortcut handling.