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From a tech standpoint, yes. There are some pretty powerful interests that don't want to see the open web on mobile. Google and Apple get handsome cuts of all t

From a tech standpoint, yes. There are some pretty powerful interests that don't want to see the open web on mobile. Google and Apple get handsome cuts of all the revenue on their semi-closed platforms. Consumer demand may shift that, but I'm not holding my breath. The open web was an historical anomaly: historically the large information infrastructures have been nearly monopolized (telegraph, phone lines, cable/broadcast).

dasil003 11y ago
The web is an anomaly yes, but it has broader reach than any other platform in the history of mankind. Thinking that native apps will kill the web is to miss the forest for the trees. None of these proprietary platforms have the reach of the web. No computing device maker can release a credible device without web support. It doesn't matter how much money you have, you can't make your proprietary platform cross the chasm the web has crossed. Apple can't do it, even open-source Android can't do it, because Android is runtime, not a standard. The common narrative of PC app -> Web app -> Mobile app is only superficially accurate in terms of where the tech hype was at different points. But in terms of long-term life cycles, mobile apps are much more like PC apps, and the web is something else completely different, which we've never seen before, and mark my words, it will not disappear or be superseded anytime soon.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  the web is something else completely different, which we've never seen before, and mark my words, it will not disappear or be superseded anytime soon Smalltalk environments? That's the gist of it. The web is a file server protocol with a pseudo-Smalltalk coating. We've seen hypertext systems in general many times before the web.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    None that crossed the chasm. That's what makes the web special and unique, not the functionality.
- rimantas 11y ago
  The web ten years ago was indeed different when clean markup, separation of concerns, accessibility meant something. Nowadays it is just a mess, cannon fodder in the battle nobody asked for.
  - huskyr 11y ago
    It "meant something" for a tiny fraction of web developers. The vast majority of developers in 2005 was probably either using Flash or creating something that only worked in IE (with its 85% usage share).
  - grumblestumble 11y ago
    Yes, I totally miss the good ole' days of bitching about IE getting the CSS box model wrong, despite the fact that it was the better implementation and as soon as the standards gods deigned to bless us with 'border-box' everyone kind of pretended those threads on css-discuss never happened... Or endless bickering over the best unit to declare font-size in, because of course it made absolute sense to leave accessibility to site designers, not browser implementations... Or posturing over why 'float' was actually a valid layout concept for anything besides a block of paragraphs with images interspersed... Or the endless clearfix or image replacement hacks... Ahh yeah, the good ole' days...
rimantas 11y ago
Once again, what so special about mobile? Somehow I don't see webtech proponents rallying for wining the desktop or winning the smartwatches. This obsession with winning the mobile is plain stupid. Instead of wasting time implementing half-baked features which will never catch-up the native offerings and stuffing more crap into already multi-megabyte web pages how about doing some spring cleaning?

dasil003 11y ago

The web is an anomaly yes, but it has broader reach than any other platform in the history of mankind. Thinking that native apps will kill the web is to miss the forest for the trees. None of these proprietary platforms have the reach of the web. No computing device maker can release a credible device without web support. It doesn't matter how much money you have, you can't make your proprietary platform cross the chasm the web has crossed. Apple can't do it, even open-source Android can't do it, because Android is runtime, not a standard. The common narrative of PC app -> Web app -> Mobile app is only superficially accurate in terms of where the tech hype was at different points. But in terms of long-term life cycles, mobile apps are much more like PC apps, and the web is something else completely different, which we've never seen before, and mark my words, it will not disappear or be superseded anytime soon.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
the web is something else completely different, which we've never seen before, and mark my words, it will not disappear or be superseded anytime soon Smalltalk environments? That's the gist of it. The web is a file server protocol with a pseudo-Smalltalk coating. We've seen hypertext systems in general many times before the web.
- dasil003 11y ago
  None that crossed the chasm. That's what makes the web special and unique, not the functionality.
rimantas 11y ago
The web ten years ago was indeed different when clean markup, separation of concerns, accessibility meant something. Nowadays it is just a mess, cannon fodder in the battle nobody asked for.
- huskyr 11y ago
  It "meant something" for a tiny fraction of web developers. The vast majority of developers in 2005 was probably either using Flash or creating something that only worked in IE (with its 85% usage share).
- grumblestumble 11y ago
  Yes, I totally miss the good ole' days of bitching about IE getting the CSS box model wrong, despite the fact that it was the better implementation and as soon as the standards gods deigned to bless us with 'border-box' everyone kind of pretended those threads on css-discuss never happened... Or endless bickering over the best unit to declare font-size in, because of course it made absolute sense to leave accessibility to site designers, not browser implementations... Or posturing over why 'float' was actually a valid layout concept for anything besides a block of paragraphs with images interspersed... Or the endless clearfix or image replacement hacks... Ahh yeah, the good ole' days...

rimantas 11y ago

Once again, what so special about mobile? Somehow I don't see webtech proponents rallying for wining the desktop or winning the smartwatches. This obsession with winning the mobile is plain stupid. Instead of wasting time implementing half-baked features which will never catch-up the native offerings and stuffing more crap into already multi-megabyte web pages how about doing some spring cleaning?