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>Technically email isn't the web. I see this very same things on the web. Heaven forbid you use internet explorer as your browser or are a version behind. The

>Technically email isn't the web. I see this very same things on the web. Heaven forbid you use internet explorer as your browser or are a version behind. The amount of smarmy, "Use a real browser" messages I've gotten when testing things in IE is unacceptable. I have no love for IE, but lots of people use it, and I need to support it at work. Just because its difficult to write html for for certain use cases doesn't mean its useless. I understand when using something IE doesnt support yet, but that didn't seem to be the case with these websites. Often these sites are run by 20-somethings straight out of school with some kind of 'stick it to the man' identity politics. Yeah if you're a middle class person who went to college, have healthcare, have a non back-breaking computer job, etc guess what, you're the man. I feel like we've never transcended the proprietary mindset and popularity still rules. This email client may be an extreme example, but the web is pretty unfriendly if you're not using firefox or a webkit based browser. Oh, the opposite was true in the past? So what. That doesn't make the current status quo acceptable. I love how we justify the various ways we refuse to learn from history. On mobile its even worse. We're not even shoving things into silos. We're saying, "Look, this featureset which could be trivially be put into a HTML5 webpage is now a local app proprietary to this platform. Install it, deal with its constant updates, its crappy UI, etc." Does every newspaper in the world and forum really think I want to install their app? I'd have hundreds of apps on my phone if I did. I really think we're regressing a bit. The cloud-ification and foolproofing of things just leads to a handful of megacorps providing near-mandatory services and applying their own policies and politics onto those services. We keep losing ground to them on things like privacy, stability, ownership, etc for convenience. Not sure where this is going to lead to in the end, but it won't be anything like we're used to. I doubt it'll be for the better. MSN and AOL tried to build a walled web garden in the 90s and were laughed at by the tech-savvy. Now the tech-savvy are the ones sporting ipads and android phones and willingly entering these new walled gardens.

teacup50 12y ago
It's interesting that you target mobile, while HTML/webapps are actually one of the largest drivers of silo-ization and proprietary lock-in around: - The code is all stored server-side; you stop paying, or the vendor loses interest, you lose the app. Poof. I can still run applications from the 1990s for research, but I can't run a webapp that disappeared last year. - The protocols ("REST" not withstanding) are all proprietary. Given any two competing webapps, they almost certainly vend two entirely different protocols. - Everyone gets the latest version whether they want it or not -- and whether it's a benefit to them, or not. If the company wants to insert ads, or revoke a useful tool that no longer fits their strategy, or take any other action that diminishes the value of user's investment in the app -- they can. - Lock-in is standard; data is heavily welded to the particular application, and even where data export exists (a rarity), the formats are proprietary and ill-supported elsewhere. For all the talk of "openness" for developers, the web has created what might be the most open-hostile environment for users we've seen since AOL and Compuserve.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Quite true PaaS and SaaS are all about locking in the users without giving anything back. No different than the native OS silos that those webdevs argue against all the time.
pfraze 12y ago
The outdated browser issue doesn't really factor into this.
Zirro 12y ago
"This email client may be an extreme example, but the web is pretty unfriendly if you're not using firefox or a webkit based browser." That this would be the case today would have been hard to believe only a few years ago. For quite long, the situation was the opposite.
nemothekid 12y ago
Your rant about IE is strange given that IE, a for a long time, was nonstandard. Think about it, you are asking developers to support a non-standard set of browsers to reach a "large" use base. How is that any different from the guys at mailbox supporting a non-standard API to reach a large user base? The web looks fine in standard supporting browsers, and as of now that is Gecko and Webkit browsers (which by the way make up 99% of OSS browsers, like Midori and IceCat). Most of the other non-Gecko/Webkit browsers are Trident based, closed source, and only support Windows. Using the web is a bad example for showing that there is a "proprietary mindset", when in fact all the standards about the web are completely open.
- rwallace 12y ago
  There's an important distinction that needs to be drawn here. It's perfectly okay to say 'we support modern standards, older versions of IE don't comply with modern standards so if you use IE, you need to upgrade to a recent version'. It's not okay to say 'you can't use even recent versions of IE because we don't like the brand name'. (I think it is the former rather than the latter that people are generally doing, but it's worth clarifying the distinction.)

teacup50 12y ago

It's interesting that you target mobile, while HTML/webapps are actually one of the largest drivers of silo-ization and proprietary lock-in around: - The code is all stored server-side; you stop paying, or the vendor loses interest, you lose the app. Poof. I can still run applications from the 1990s for research, but I can't run a webapp that disappeared last year. - The protocols ("REST" not withstanding) are all proprietary. Given any two competing webapps, they almost certainly vend two entirely different protocols. - Everyone gets the latest version whether they want it or not -- and whether it's a benefit to them, or not. If the company wants to insert ads, or revoke a useful tool that no longer fits their strategy, or take any other action that diminishes the value of user's investment in the app -- they can. - Lock-in is standard; data is heavily welded to the particular application, and even where data export exists (a rarity), the formats are proprietary and ill-supported elsewhere. For all the talk of "openness" for developers, the web has created what might be the most open-hostile environment for users we've seen since AOL and Compuserve.

pjmlp 12y ago
Quite true PaaS and SaaS are all about locking in the users without giving anything back. No different than the native OS silos that those webdevs argue against all the time.

pfraze 12y ago

The outdated browser issue doesn't really factor into this.

Zirro 12y ago

"This email client may be an extreme example, but the web is pretty unfriendly if you're not using firefox or a webkit based browser." That this would be the case today would have been hard to believe only a few years ago. For quite long, the situation was the opposite.

nemothekid 12y ago

Your rant about IE is strange given that IE, a for a long time, was nonstandard. Think about it, you are asking developers to support a non-standard set of browsers to reach a "large" use base. How is that any different from the guys at mailbox supporting a non-standard API to reach a large user base? The web looks fine in standard supporting browsers, and as of now that is Gecko and Webkit browsers (which by the way make up 99% of OSS browsers, like Midori and IceCat). Most of the other non-Gecko/Webkit browsers are Trident based, closed source, and only support Windows. Using the web is a bad example for showing that there is a "proprietary mindset", when in fact all the standards about the web are completely open.

rwallace 12y ago
There's an important distinction that needs to be drawn here. It's perfectly okay to say 'we support modern standards, older versions of IE don't comply with modern standards so if you use IE, you need to upgrade to a recent version'. It's not okay to say 'you can't use even recent versions of IE because we don't like the brand name'. (I think it is the former rather than the latter that people are generally doing, but it's worth clarifying the distinction.)