Why Google and Apple work to snuff out the mobile web(toot.cafe)
toot.cafe
Why Google and Apple work to snuff out the mobile web
https://toot.cafe/@slightlyoff/109632248664696707
316 comments
Jobs didn't want apps at all but he was eventually convinced they were needed, late in the iPhone development cycle. So rather than announce the native tools early (they wouldn't ship for another year) they tried to sell web apps in the meantime. Typical Apple release process, even though it's detrimental to them and their users.
Yep. Thus my assertion that the author's claims are wrong.
While I do resent a lot of Apple's lies and anti-user, anti-developer actions, I would give them a pass in this instance because they were inventing an industry-changing development ecosystem and they did so very, very well.
While I do resent a lot of Apple's lies and anti-user, anti-developer actions, I would give them a pass in this instance because they were inventing an industry-changing development ecosystem and they did so very, very well.
Your take is what I recall as well.
And not just Jobs and Apple on the HTML apps kick, Jon Rubenstein (aka 'the Podfather' for producing the iPod) left Apple to make Palm into a web app powerhouse, developing the webOS platform and the Palm Pre.
This is how mobile devices were supposed to work. The "native apps" jag is a disaster I'd argue was mostly generated by devs not users or manufacturers, and set mobile web back a decade.
And not just Jobs and Apple on the HTML apps kick, Jon Rubenstein (aka 'the Podfather' for producing the iPod) left Apple to make Palm into a web app powerhouse, developing the webOS platform and the Palm Pre.
This is how mobile devices were supposed to work. The "native apps" jag is a disaster I'd argue was mostly generated by devs not users or manufacturers, and set mobile web back a decade.
If it was how they were meant to work then iOS would have looked like WebOS, with all first party apps written in HTML and JS.
The reason devs rejected Jobs' "write web apps" pitch, which was only ever about the SDK, store and APIs not being ready in time, was because it was so clearly not what Apple themselves were doing. Nor could they hope to match the quality of Apple's apps without using the same APIs.
The reason devs rejected Jobs' "write web apps" pitch, which was only ever about the SDK, store and APIs not being ready in time, was because it was so clearly not what Apple themselves were doing. Nor could they hope to match the quality of Apple's apps without using the same APIs.
> was mostly generated by devs not users or manufacturers, and set mobile web back a decade.
This simple fact was true in 2007 and it still is true in 2022: you can't even animate a list item on the web without incurring significant performance costs. Slack eats 20% CPU on an M1 Mac to display a single animated emoji.
Web has never been, and never will be a platform for apps. This has nothing to do with "devs vs. users". Users want slick performant apps that don't destroy your battery life. Web cannot and will never be able to offer that.
Because the core of the web is, was and will for ever be a system to display static text and images in a single rendering pass.
This simple fact was true in 2007 and it still is true in 2022: you can't even animate a list item on the web without incurring significant performance costs. Slack eats 20% CPU on an M1 Mac to display a single animated emoji.
Web has never been, and never will be a platform for apps. This has nothing to do with "devs vs. users". Users want slick performant apps that don't destroy your battery life. Web cannot and will never be able to offer that.
Because the core of the web is, was and will for ever be a system to display static text and images in a single rendering pass.
Looking at Symbian and Windows CE/Pocket PC, not really, it was pretty much native apps.
The author also falsely claimed that Google acquired Danger - it did not! I get the distinct impression that the thread is poorly researched, and I am therefore wary about the conclusions drawn.
So Danger OS belongs to who now? Andy? Is it merged into the Android1.0?
Microsoft bought Danger.
They spent a huge amount of time rewriting everything from Java to .net and by the time they released the Kin phones they were no longer competitive in the market. Microsoft cancelled the Kin phones only a few weeks after their release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_(company)
They spent a huge amount of time rewriting everything from Java to .net and by the time they released the Kin phones they were no longer competitive in the market. Microsoft cancelled the Kin phones only a few weeks after their release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_(company)
The web really wasn't ready though. I was doing web platform work at the time and it simply was not capable of doing the stuff native could do, which is why the App Store was an inevitability.
I agree. That's why the author's assertions are completely bogus.
Developers were saying "why not NATIVE," whereas he claims the opposite.
Apple was saying "Web apps all the way!"
Developers were saying "why not NATIVE," whereas he claims the opposite.
Apple was saying "Web apps all the way!"
This comment is confusing because you're talking about the article by a different author linked from the post, not the linked post itself.
No one else seems to be confused, but to be fair I didn't even remember that the HN post went to a tweet... or toot. However, the poster of that link seems to agree with the author of the core article.
> No one else seems to be confused
you refer to "the author's revisionist history", sangnoir's comment in response says "the author also falsely claimed...", but these are referring to two different authors.
> the poster of that link seems to agree with the author of the core article
he literally wrote "While Chris is crisp about the problem and the consequences of not solving it, he doesn't have answers for why Google and Apple act the way they do" and proceeds to give a different history and background.
> but to be fair I didn't even remember that the HN post went to a tweet... or toot
so...you were confused.
you refer to "the author's revisionist history", sangnoir's comment in response says "the author also falsely claimed...", but these are referring to two different authors.
> the poster of that link seems to agree with the author of the core article
he literally wrote "While Chris is crisp about the problem and the consequences of not solving it, he doesn't have answers for why Google and Apple act the way they do" and proceeds to give a different history and background.
> but to be fair I didn't even remember that the HN post went to a tweet... or toot
so...you were confused.
No, you were confused, as you said. About more than one thing, apparently.
I think Steve Jobs, as great as he was, didn't initially grasp the immense money these setups can make.
Whatever Jobs wanted he is now long gone
> There had been parallel tracks, and prototypes of a truly web-based OS, but they didn't launch. Cocoa was already Plan A when Jobs described the web as a "great application platform" at Moscone.
AFAIK, this is completely false. There was never a webOS-type proposal. Where do people come up with this stuff?
AFAIK, this is completely false. There was never a webOS-type proposal. Where do people come up with this stuff?
There's a lot of "here's the reasoning behind what they did" with nothing backing it up but their word. It's an implicit appeal to their authority, and I personally have no idea who they are.
Digging in, it seems like they worked on Chrome for several years before moving over to Edge. That would give them at least some technical insight into what happened at Google, if not the reasons behind those decisions.
Even so, it still feels like a lot more speculation than actual facts.
But that's me.
Digging in, it seems like they worked on Chrome for several years before moving over to Edge. That would give them at least some technical insight into what happened at Google, if not the reasons behind those decisions.
Even so, it still feels like a lot more speculation than actual facts.
But that's me.
> It's an implicit appeal to their authority, and I personally have no idea who they are.
Alex Russel, a developer, team lead and developer advocate for Google for 13 years from 2008 to 2021. He's one of the primary people responsible for the web components mess.
He's quite well known in hte web/web-adjacent world. During his work at Google he would:
- go out of his way to blame and gaslight Apple for everything
- defend and any and all Chrome-only non-standards that Chrome was (and still is) churning out at ever-accelerating rate, completely ignoring any and all standards processes, or other browser vendors' input
- be completely silent on "how Google killed mobile web" and only blaming Apple
Once he went to work for Microsoft he started bashing Google, too.
The amount of grains of salt tyou need to take to read anything he writes that is not strictly technnical would cause world-wide salt deficit for any forseeable future.
Alex Russel, a developer, team lead and developer advocate for Google for 13 years from 2008 to 2021. He's one of the primary people responsible for the web components mess.
He's quite well known in hte web/web-adjacent world. During his work at Google he would:
- go out of his way to blame and gaslight Apple for everything
- defend and any and all Chrome-only non-standards that Chrome was (and still is) churning out at ever-accelerating rate, completely ignoring any and all standards processes, or other browser vendors' input
- be completely silent on "how Google killed mobile web" and only blaming Apple
Once he went to work for Microsoft he started bashing Google, too.
The amount of grains of salt tyou need to take to read anything he writes that is not strictly technnical would cause world-wide salt deficit for any forseeable future.
But it's not ONLY you. Several of the author's core assertions are demonstrably wrong.
I don't know what "truly web-based OS" means exactly, but Jobs was very resistant to third-party apps at first.
"Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that 'would behave like native apps on the iPhone'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS#History
"Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that 'would behave like native apps on the iPhone'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS#History
Jobs' priority was to cut off the telcos. Carriers used to be in charge of phone OSes, preloading a lot of clunky bullshit that typically ruined the experience. He wanted to avoid that arrangement, because it would mean relinquishing control - commercial anathema for him. So he went with a setup where telcos couldn't screw up things even if they tried to: web-apps couldn't mess with the overall system stability.
Once it became clear the phone was desirable enough for telcos to leave it alone, he pivoted to what would give him even more control.
Once it became clear the phone was desirable enough for telcos to leave it alone, he pivoted to what would give him even more control.
Not really. The iPhone just barely shipped on time. It was a death march development up to FCS (first customer ship). Most of what were eventually released as public APIs didn't even exist in iOS 1.0. Hell most of the first party apps on the phone just barely ran. Web apps were the only practical way to get third party code running reliably on iOS 1.0.
Even after the 1.0 release Apple went back into death march development mode to polish up a usable SDK. Even that first SDK had a tiny surface area compared all the frameworks available on the OS. It wasn't until iOS 3 that the SDK felt fully functional and not polished until iOS 4.
Web apps were a stopgap. Early iOS was just barely above an advanced demo in terms of quality and functionality. A lot of frameworks didn't even have stable APIs to release for third party developers.
Even after the 1.0 release Apple went back into death march development mode to polish up a usable SDK. Even that first SDK had a tiny surface area compared all the frameworks available on the OS. It wasn't until iOS 3 that the SDK felt fully functional and not polished until iOS 4.
Web apps were a stopgap. Early iOS was just barely above an advanced demo in terms of quality and functionality. A lot of frameworks didn't even have stable APIs to release for third party developers.
> because it would mean relinquishing control - commercial anathema for him
Also, like, the forced carrier apps on every generic phone before the iPhone either ruined or crippled the experience of using the phone, locking you into their shitty ad-laden applications or forcing you through their terrible browsers and web portals.
To me, and several people I knew at the time - It was one of the big appeals of the iPhone that Apple had drawn a hard line at not allowing any of this.
It was 100% actually better for the consumer.
Also, like, the forced carrier apps on every generic phone before the iPhone either ruined or crippled the experience of using the phone, locking you into their shitty ad-laden applications or forcing you through their terrible browsers and web portals.
To me, and several people I knew at the time - It was one of the big appeals of the iPhone that Apple had drawn a hard line at not allowing any of this.
It was 100% actually better for the consumer.
This seems like the most likely scenariou
The situation was slightly more complicated. Half of the original launch apps on the phone were first built as JS web apps. Most were completely rewritten to be native apps before launch (and the rest after launch) because it was clear that the native experience was superior.
Only later was the decision made to ship a public SDK. Web apps were announced because that's the only thing third parties could use. There was no public API to speak of, just a collection of internal APIs and one-offs in individual apps.
Only later was the decision made to ship a public SDK. Web apps were announced because that's the only thing third parties could use. There was no public API to speak of, just a collection of internal APIs and one-offs in individual apps.
You know what other phone OS ran exclusively web-based JS apps? Firefox OS. And it was a dismal failure. Pivoting to native apps on the early iPhone models was absolutely the right call.
I wouldn’t assume that Firefox OS failed where iOS succeeded just because of the use of web features. There were hundreds of other factors involved.
As someone close to that situation, Firefox OS's failure had nothing to do with being web based beyond the fact that it was incompatible with the two dominant mobile platforms.
Ex. If you can't run the Android or iOS YouTube app, what you have left is the web one... which could be amazing, but is hardly a fully functional PWA because Google would rather you used the native app.
Firefox OS would have failed all the same had it been based on Qt, or even if it was based on Java without the Android runtime and SDK.
Ex. If you can't run the Android or iOS YouTube app, what you have left is the web one... which could be amazing, but is hardly a fully functional PWA because Google would rather you used the native app.
Firefox OS would have failed all the same had it been based on Qt, or even if it was based on Java without the Android runtime and SDK.
The Macs desktop widgets was considered as an alternative to an App Store. They would run on the existing iPhone.
Sounds interesting. Source?
Amongst others, probably referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1nwLilQy64
and
https://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-d...
Whether it's revisionist history or not, there were later claims that Steve Jobs knew they couldn't have a native platform ready when the iPhone was first announced so they stalled for time to a) get the App Store ready and b) see what types of app ideas were popular to get those platform APIs finalized. The interim solution was web apps with recommendations to look at the Dashboard APIs in Mac OS X (which were basically web apps).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1nwLilQy64
and
https://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-d...
Whether it's revisionist history or not, there were later claims that Steve Jobs knew they couldn't have a native platform ready when the iPhone was first announced so they stalled for time to a) get the App Store ready and b) see what types of app ideas were popular to get those platform APIs finalized. The interim solution was web apps with recommendations to look at the Dashboard APIs in Mac OS X (which were basically web apps).
After the iPhone but before the App Store I was at a developer event in NYC. If you comb the internet for the developer talk at that time you can see it alluded to. In fact Apple still insists that the web is a perfectly good place for these not App Store suitable.
Source not really it was a vibe at the time.
Source not really it was a vibe at the time.
IIRC Don Melton mentioned that.
Web > Mobile Web > App in that order.
On my iPad the "web" just works, any "m." site just adds even more whitespace than web developers seem compelled to force on viewers and raises the font size to 3x bigger than the large type books at the public library.
Web sites (say Reddit) have some banner that says it is better if you download the app, log in and all that bs, but you know it is not better for you it is better for them collecting data on you.
But really how bad it is it? I spend as little time as possible with apps on my iPad, mostly i have 6 different apps so I can occasionally do something with the "internet of things".
My take is that the web works just fine on mobile, it is PWA and push notifications which no users asked for, anyway. I mean, push notifications, does anybody really want to get more spam? The one thing I know is that everybody and his brother and his sister and all their cousins and their cousin's schoolteachers and on and on wants to send me more spam than I can handle so if Apple is saying "no spam please" isn't that fighting the good fight?
On my iPad the "web" just works, any "m." site just adds even more whitespace than web developers seem compelled to force on viewers and raises the font size to 3x bigger than the large type books at the public library.
Web sites (say Reddit) have some banner that says it is better if you download the app, log in and all that bs, but you know it is not better for you it is better for them collecting data on you.
But really how bad it is it? I spend as little time as possible with apps on my iPad, mostly i have 6 different apps so I can occasionally do something with the "internet of things".
My take is that the web works just fine on mobile, it is PWA and push notifications which no users asked for, anyway. I mean, push notifications, does anybody really want to get more spam? The one thing I know is that everybody and his brother and his sister and all their cousins and their cousin's schoolteachers and on and on wants to send me more spam than I can handle so if Apple is saying "no spam please" isn't that fighting the good fight?
http://i.reddit.com still exists, thankfully, and is a million times better than the new one.
Are there any examples of really a great PWA on mobile? I always find the experience of company's mobile site far worse than its app (such as YouTube or Spotify), and I'm never sure if it's just lack of effort and attention, intentional to push users to the app, or just the ever so slight annoyances like slight tap delay on Safari iOS.
Starbucks put a lot of effort into their PWA [1] to ensure users of low-end devices were able to get a rich experience. I just found a case study [2] by the team that built it that goes into some interesting details.
[1]: https://app.starbucks.com/
[2]: https://formidable.com/work/starbucks-progressive-web-app/
[1]: https://app.starbucks.com/
[2]: https://formidable.com/work/starbucks-progressive-web-app/
Personal experience as a web dev: the mobile Safari PWA experience (and even regular browser experience) is terrible. The browser is riddled with bugs and lacks support for features that have been around for a while. I apologzie for not having examples bc it was a few months ago that I was struggling with this, but hopefully someone else can fill some in. I honestly believe Apple's stranglehold on the mobile browsing experience has been one of the most disempowering things to mobile users in the last decade.
Why is the answer to this question always “Safari sucks”?
Are there no good PWAs that run on Android? Are there none that, though perhaps smaller is scope, run well in Safari?
People have been advocating for PWAs for a very long time now but it’s incredibly hard to get examples of good ones. There is always some complaint about Safari instead.
Are there no good PWAs that run on Android? Are there none that, though perhaps smaller is scope, run well in Safari?
People have been advocating for PWAs for a very long time now but it’s incredibly hard to get examples of good ones. There is always some complaint about Safari instead.
>There is always some complaint about Safari instead.
when one app is used by roughly half of all mobile users, that's not something you can ignore. so complaining about that one app when these conversations come up does not seem out of place. essentially, the conversation is something like:
- PWAs are great!
-- How well do they run on Safari?
- PWAs are great on other platforms.
-- So about half of mobile users? Doesn't seem that great to me
when one app is used by roughly half of all mobile users, that's not something you can ignore. so complaining about that one app when these conversations come up does not seem out of place. essentially, the conversation is something like:
- PWAs are great!
-- How well do they run on Safari?
- PWAs are great on other platforms.
-- So about half of mobile users? Doesn't seem that great to me
Safari is used by half of US users. Worldwide it’s closer to 20%. And the desktop is totally open.
I’m not saying I expect PWAs to be huge, but it seems like they should be more notable PWAs if people really wanted them so bad.
I’m not saying I expect PWAs to be huge, but it seems like they should be more notable PWAs if people really wanted them so bad.
meh, semantics. the point is that there's a large enough audience that it doesn't add up to making sense for dev time.
Google, to some degree, worked with Twitter to make twitter.com a 'flagship example' of what PWAs could be. If that's the best Google could come up with, the platform stands zero chance.
I prefer the Twitter PWA to the native app. What do you think is wrong with it?
Filled with empty loading pages? Not smooth at all compared to the native app? And having zero animations doesn't help at all
Everything loads instantly for me, including the app because I always have a browser process running anyway. What browser are you using?
Twitter is actively trying to force people to use the app by making web experience miserable.
And that’s for an app that is actually trivial.
Apple's stronghold affects PWA feasibility on Android too. If I have to write a PWA for Android and a native app for iOS to cover gaps in Safari, why choose a PWA at all?
Apple may be ~50% of the market in the US but it’s ~20% of the market worldwide. On the desktop anyone on any mainstream OS can use Chrome or FF.
Yet someone the total lack of PWA success is 100% Safari’s fault.
Look at all those users I listed above. How are there no common/well known PWAs if they’re so great? People use websites like the Google Suite and Figma and such. They use web apps built as desktop apps in Electron. They use native apps.
Almost no one uses PWAs. Even if Figma or Gmail or whatever is available to be saved as a PWA it doesn’t seem to be commonly done.
There must be some other problem than Safari. It can’t be the big issue.
Yet someone the total lack of PWA success is 100% Safari’s fault.
Look at all those users I listed above. How are there no common/well known PWAs if they’re so great? People use websites like the Google Suite and Figma and such. They use web apps built as desktop apps in Electron. They use native apps.
Almost no one uses PWAs. Even if Figma or Gmail or whatever is available to be saved as a PWA it doesn’t seem to be commonly done.
There must be some other problem than Safari. It can’t be the big issue.
Telegram is probably the best example of a PWA. It's not as good as the mobile app, especially for gestures, but it's better than a lot of native apps.
Telegram really is an outlier among messengers. Each version is developed by like one person, and they are all feature-rich, feature-complete, fast and smooth.
There's a bunch that run very well on Android: Twitter, Instagram, Uber, Lyft, even TikTok all have very good PWAs.
TikTok aggressively funnels you into the native app for various business reasons, but the experience is well polished if they'd let you use it all the time.
Safari (really that iOS won't let you pick a different browser) has definitely been holding back the growth of PWAs though. Without decent install to home screen support (apple doesn't implement install banners for web), no push notifications, many of the native API integrations missing, it's hard to go too far down the web path before the business folks want the native app for growth angles. It's a lot more about making money than the better UX that can be had with native.
TikTok aggressively funnels you into the native app for various business reasons, but the experience is well polished if they'd let you use it all the time.
Safari (really that iOS won't let you pick a different browser) has definitely been holding back the growth of PWAs though. Without decent install to home screen support (apple doesn't implement install banners for web), no push notifications, many of the native API integrations missing, it's hard to go too far down the web path before the business folks want the native app for growth angles. It's a lot more about making money than the better UX that can be had with native.
> many of the native API integrations missing
Those "native API integrations" are Chrome-only non-standards that neither Safari nor Firefox are ever going to implement.
Those "native API integrations" are Chrome-only non-standards that neither Safari nor Firefox are ever going to implement.
Because Safari sucks.
The reason iOS and Google/Android PWAs suck is because Apple does everything in its power to make them suck:
- Complex and user-unfriendly "add-to-homescreen" functionality
- Limited/trailing functionality for native APIs
- The obnoxious url/browser bar persistent at the bottom of the page, with horrendous and uncustomizable hiding/showing of said bar.
People advocate for PWAs, but I never use them because as an end-user they're awful to use, because developers can't create them to the quality of native applications because of these limitations. Of course the complaints go to Safari in that case.
They absolutely could have PWAs be of higher quality, but they don't, for obvious reasons.
The reason iOS and Google/Android PWAs suck is because Apple does everything in its power to make them suck:
- Complex and user-unfriendly "add-to-homescreen" functionality
- Limited/trailing functionality for native APIs
- The obnoxious url/browser bar persistent at the bottom of the page, with horrendous and uncustomizable hiding/showing of said bar.
People advocate for PWAs, but I never use them because as an end-user they're awful to use, because developers can't create them to the quality of native applications because of these limitations. Of course the complaints go to Safari in that case.
They absolutely could have PWAs be of higher quality, but they don't, for obvious reasons.
I get why they suck on iOS.
Why aren’t they on Android? Windows? Linux? MacOS?
Existing PWAs should be better known, especially in HN-like/tech circles.
But that’s not what I see.
Why aren’t they on Android? Windows? Linux? MacOS?
Existing PWAs should be better known, especially in HN-like/tech circles.
But that’s not what I see.
I can't entirely speak for Android, but I assume that Google has similar nonsense (as evidenced by sideloading being a pain to the average user)
For Windows, Linux, and MacOS, there's no real need for them, or not enough need for them to exist. There are no policies or guidelines to follow, there is no 30% tax.
The browsers people use on desktop devices provide everything that developers need and can reasonably expect of the platform. There aren't any usability differences, there are barely any performance differences, and there are barely any feature differences.
In fact, I think many desktop end-users would prefer the app to be web-based because it feels so native.
In addition, it's what another commenter said - if it can't be on iOS, then what's even the point of having one?
For Windows, Linux, and MacOS, there's no real need for them, or not enough need for them to exist. There are no policies or guidelines to follow, there is no 30% tax.
The browsers people use on desktop devices provide everything that developers need and can reasonably expect of the platform. There aren't any usability differences, there are barely any performance differences, and there are barely any feature differences.
In fact, I think many desktop end-users would prefer the app to be web-based because it feels so native.
In addition, it's what another commenter said - if it can't be on iOS, then what's even the point of having one?
Because many countries hardly have an iOS presence and there are tons of companies that only care about the local market.
You can hide the URL bar with the right meta tag, no?
If the user adds the PWA to their homescreen through the user-unfriendly process, I believe so.
But users won't (and don't) go through that.
But users won't (and don't) go through that.
Personal experience shipping a big PWA: Safari's PWA experience is not just bad, it's all but undiscoverable:
Open the Share sheet, scroll down, tap "Add to Home Screen," fill in the information, tap Add.
There are simply no users that do this, and it is not an alternative to having a mobile app in the App Store.
Open the Share sheet, scroll down, tap "Add to Home Screen," fill in the information, tap Add.
There are simply no users that do this, and it is not an alternative to having a mobile app in the App Store.
> There are simply no users that do this…
100%. PWAs are not a priority for Apple (and shouldn't be for developers) because users don't search for apps in web search engines, they search for them in the App Store.
100%. PWAs are not a priority for Apple (and shouldn't be for developers) because users don't search for apps in web search engines, they search for them in the App Store.
App store discoverability is very poor. Web discoverability is much easier to manage. It's something you have more control over and can buy easier through marketing via any channel you want. App store pages just don't convert well.
I agree about the installation process (though the user shouldn’t need to fill in any info). The actual user experience when using home screen PWAs can be made to be OK, but there really needs to be a meta tag or whatever to allow an ‘Add to Home Screen’ banner to appear (similar to the way you can link to the App Store if you have a native app).
This was an interesting recent development if it ends up being true, specifically Apple opening up iOS browser engine restrictions:
https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/13/apple-mulls-opening-browser-e...
https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/13/apple-mulls-opening-browser-e...
Personal experience as a web user: I agree.
I'm not even talking about bugs per se. Just the experience. I find myself constantly battling misinterpreted gestures. I try to zoom out on a page. Safari thinks I want to switch to the Tab View. I don't. Please just make the page smaller so I can see it all.
Or, I try to grab a UI slider that's positioned near the left edge of the viewport. Safari thinks I want to navigate back to the previous page. Nope. Apparently if form controls are too close to the screen's edge, they're read-only at that point?
So many gestures are overloaded now that it's a stressful thing sometimes to get it to do what I want. Being pixel-perfect with my fat dumb finger is no fun.
I'm not even talking about bugs per se. Just the experience. I find myself constantly battling misinterpreted gestures. I try to zoom out on a page. Safari thinks I want to switch to the Tab View. I don't. Please just make the page smaller so I can see it all.
Or, I try to grab a UI slider that's positioned near the left edge of the viewport. Safari thinks I want to navigate back to the previous page. Nope. Apparently if form controls are too close to the screen's edge, they're read-only at that point?
So many gestures are overloaded now that it's a stressful thing sometimes to get it to do what I want. Being pixel-perfect with my fat dumb finger is no fun.
Is it because it's actually riddle with bugs or just that most devs built on top of features only available on Chrome?
Isn't the main purpose of a native app access to data collection that a browser would not have access? That way they can make money on that data collection?
Am I just too cynical here?
Am I just too cynical here?
Many other benefits to the company: (not necessarily for the user)
* Persistent shortcut button on device's launcher
* Notifications to pull user back into app to consume content, spend money, view ads
* Data collection like you say
* Uniquely identify user w/ device identifiers
* No browser UI and quirks
* Persistent storage on user's device
* Persistent shortcut button on device's launcher
* Notifications to pull user back into app to consume content, spend money, view ads
* Data collection like you say
* Uniquely identify user w/ device identifiers
* No browser UI and quirks
* Persistent storage on user's device
On the dev side of things, a huge advantage of using the native SDK is that you’re not stuck with the downsides of the web’s “bring your own everything” approach. You’ve get an expansive set of capable UI widgets and frameworks for everything imaginable that are battle-tested and opinionated with there being a well supported “happy path” for just about any task.
Additionally many of the APIs are mature and haven’t changed significantly in a while, which means the body of relevant reference material online is huge — it’s not necessarily outdated just because it’s a couple years old, predating [X buzzword feature] getting added to [Y trendy JS framework] and turning popular convention upside down for the fiftieth time.
Well, that’s how it on iOS at least. It’s more murky on Android because Android Framework is kind of a mess, but it still has some advantages over the web.
Additionally many of the APIs are mature and haven’t changed significantly in a while, which means the body of relevant reference material online is huge — it’s not necessarily outdated just because it’s a couple years old, predating [X buzzword feature] getting added to [Y trendy JS framework] and turning popular convention upside down for the fiftieth time.
Well, that’s how it on iOS at least. It’s more murky on Android because Android Framework is kind of a mess, but it still has some advantages over the web.
All of those are possible with PWAs except #5, and I'd argue that having completely different SDKs for each platform is much worse :(
A pwa can only track you, as long as it is running and depending on the browser, has focus.
A native app can track you all the time.
Also, PWAs on apple have only "persistent" storage for 7 days.
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/710157
A native app can track you all the time.
Also, PWAs on apple have only "persistent" storage for 7 days.
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/710157
Unique identification is no longer possible thanks to the 7 day cap on script writeable storage.
Notifications are coming in 2023.
But the big one — access to the address book picker - is still behind an Experimental flag !!
Notifications are coming in 2023.
But the big one — access to the address book picker - is still behind an Experimental flag !!
also avoids adblock
Mobile web apps have existed for decades.
It simply comes down to the fact that the user experience is not as good as native.
And you can't run a successful business without making your users happy.
It simply comes down to the fact that the user experience is not as good as native.
And you can't run a successful business without making your users happy.
This isn't true for 99% of business out there. Almost every mobile app is worse than its website in a mobile browser because most business can't afford a web dev team, an android dev team, and an ios dev team. The exceptions are the few apps built by the mega-corps that have the resources to build a good mobile app. Nobody want's to install some broken app with a fraction of the functionality of the web site, but that's what 99% of the apps in the app store are.
It's only not as good because web is purposefully crippled.
I think that it really depends on what the PWA is trying to do and its purpose. I think the Twitter, Instagram, and Starbucks apps are both good examples of what can be done. Potentially a lot more could be done with PWAs, if there was more push to make them better.
https://appsco.pe/
https://appsco.pe/
Scrolled around and decided to try the TikTok app. It’s perfectly functional but immediately pops up asking to install the native app for the “full experience”.
The first popup was dismissible, so I kept swiping. Within two videos the same popup was back and it was not dismissible.
Companies intentionally cripple the web experience.
The first popup was dismissible, so I kept swiping. Within two videos the same popup was back and it was not dismissible.
Companies intentionally cripple the web experience.
People keep bringing up Twitter as an example of a good PWA... But it is objectively horrendously bad.
If that's the best example of a PWA, give me a badly implemented native app any day of the week and five times on Sundays.
If that's the best example of a PWA, give me a badly implemented native app any day of the week and five times on Sundays.
Twitter is kind of ok for what I need from it.
Also mobile Web is good enough for most forms over data kind of applications.
Other than games, where Web 3D APIs are stuck in 2010, many "apps" could be easily done as mobile Web, specially all those that are basically mobile Electron.
Also mobile Web is good enough for most forms over data kind of applications.
Other than games, where Web 3D APIs are stuck in 2010, many "apps" could be easily done as mobile Web, specially all those that are basically mobile Electron.
The biggest thing hurting PWAs in my opinion is that SPAs and web apps in general is done as a cost-saving measure.
This means that while they can be good, they very often aren’t because they aren’t getting the budgets and caliber of engineering talent they’d need to be good, and so it’s much more common that they fall somewhere on the less-great side of mediocre.
Users then associate this degraded quality with web apps and disinclines them from using them, even on platforms where PWA installation is promoted (like with Edge/Chrome on Windows and Chrome on Android).
Safari’s limitations play a part too but even if Safari vanished tomorrow PWAs would continue to get lukewarm reception so long as companies aren’t putting the same kind of resources they’d put into a flagship native app into their PWAs. At the end of the day, if you cheap out you get a crap experience.
This means that while they can be good, they very often aren’t because they aren’t getting the budgets and caliber of engineering talent they’d need to be good, and so it’s much more common that they fall somewhere on the less-great side of mediocre.
Users then associate this degraded quality with web apps and disinclines them from using them, even on platforms where PWA installation is promoted (like with Edge/Chrome on Windows and Chrome on Android).
Safari’s limitations play a part too but even if Safari vanished tomorrow PWAs would continue to get lukewarm reception so long as companies aren’t putting the same kind of resources they’d put into a flagship native app into their PWAs. At the end of the day, if you cheap out you get a crap experience.
What's wrong with the YouTube pwa? To me it looks and feels very similar to the app.
Edit: just tried the Spotify pwa and it's not bad. Maybe not as good as native, but that's partly because of the big "Get App" button in the bottom right corner.
Edit: just tried the Spotify pwa and it's not bad. Maybe not as good as native, but that's partly because of the big "Get App" button in the bottom right corner.
Agreed, both are pretty good. Especially the YouTube PWA runs just as good as the native app on my Android phone, up to the point where I often forget which one I'm currently using.
Google's Santa Tracker is a pretty great PWA
for something where the tracked object is stationary for 364 days out of the year, seems like not a difficult task /s
I know you're joking (and it was funny), but thinking about it I think it's actually harder in some ways because you go from almost no traffic most of the year to needing to scale really, really fast. And the PWA has a ton of games and other things in it, so not as simple as the old school trackers that don't even need a backend cause all of the "tracking" happens in the browser
I'm 100% unawares of the Santa Tracker app that you speak, so yes, I was attempting to be funny. However, for that 1 day of the year, is it that hard to have the "tracking" done locally since it's literally just made up data? Just know the localized time and where sunset is, and have the "Santa" moving around in the nighttime areas of the globe. Guessing on efficiency suggests to me rapid movements along the North/South with magical speed roughly equidistant from the terminator at a distance equivalent to midnight.?? Again, since it's 100% make believe, it's not like your browser has to show the exact same location as someone else's.
Any other games the app might be included are out side of the scope of the imaginary app in my mind.
Any other games the app might be included are out side of the scope of the imaginary app in my mind.
I thought that a number of first party Google "native" apps is just a packaged PWA, isn't it?
Disclaimer: I work for Google, but never paid much attention to that corner of the company.
Disclaimer: I work for Google, but never paid much attention to that corner of the company.
> I thought that a number of first party Google "native" apps is just a packaged PWA, isn't it?
I wonder what those are. Because the apps where they want actual fast responsive apps with smooth animations etc. (and tracking :) ) are all native as far as I can tell.
I wonder what those are. Because the apps where they want actual fast responsive apps with smooth animations etc. (and tracking :) ) are all native as far as I can tell.
Google Finance would be an example.
I had a decent experience with the Qoezion app recently:
https://app.qoezion.com
Basic messaging functionality, ...
https://app.qoezion.com
Basic messaging functionality, ...
Brave Browser on Android is better for youtube because of the ad blocker.
I'd like an example of an app that isn't shit compared to just using the mobile browser.
i.reddit.com versus their app for example
GitLab
As a user - I don't want web based "apps" - I actively avoid anywhere I can.
I want native apps - they better align to my operating systems native UI/UX, are more performant, have less (potentially insecure).
Yes - Platform APIs absolutely should be made available to varying technologies where security is less of a concern, But I'll take a few high quality apps over a plethora of 'creative' web-apps any day of the week.
If you only need a website - just have a website, you don't need an "app" to order a beer at the pub.
In my experience a large majority of people that want other people to use web-apps / glorified chrome wrappers are those that write them and often (but not always) have a vested interest promoting getting their product/features out the door over quality, performance and security.
I want native apps - they better align to my operating systems native UI/UX, are more performant, have less (potentially insecure).
Yes - Platform APIs absolutely should be made available to varying technologies where security is less of a concern, But I'll take a few high quality apps over a plethora of 'creative' web-apps any day of the week.
If you only need a website - just have a website, you don't need an "app" to order a beer at the pub.
In my experience a large majority of people that want other people to use web-apps / glorified chrome wrappers are those that write them and often (but not always) have a vested interest promoting getting their product/features out the door over quality, performance and security.
Apps are not always more secure. I have a baby monitoring app that is always using my mic on Android, even though i have "only when I'm using the app" enabled. I can close a website, and it's gone. I cannot just close an app - those little suckers are running 24/7 doing god knows what
For sure - I didn't say they're always more secure. But in general - the majority of (maintained) applications that have less dependencies tend to be. Just have a look at the insane number of NPM packages a node application includes - good luck running (timely) automated analysis across all of those let alone maintaining the dependency tree.
> the majority of (maintained) applications that have less dependencies tend to be
As a mobile dev (and sometimes web dev) I can tell you that dependencies (implicit and explicit) are numerous in even the most basic of apps.
> good luck running (timely) automated analysis across all of those let alone maintaining the dependency tree
`npm audit fix`? There's nothing even like this on Android or iOS.
As a mobile dev (and sometimes web dev) I can tell you that dependencies (implicit and explicit) are numerous in even the most basic of apps.
> good luck running (timely) automated analysis across all of those let alone maintaining the dependency tree
`npm audit fix`? There's nothing even like this on Android or iOS.
> `npm audit fix`? There's nothing even like this on Android or iOS.
Because you don't need anything remotely like this for any proper app platform. I know of a complex web app that has more than half a million entries in its yarn.lock file. Five. Hundred. Thousand. Dependencies (of dependencies of dependencies of...)
Because there's literally nothing on the web that is suitable for app development, and you have to build the entire world from scratch, one dependency at a time, every single time.
And of course npm audit fix will not fix it because in true npm fashion even a minor update can trigger cascading failures across large swaths of the code you didn't even know were pulled in.
Because you don't need anything remotely like this for any proper app platform. I know of a complex web app that has more than half a million entries in its yarn.lock file. Five. Hundred. Thousand. Dependencies (of dependencies of dependencies of...)
Because there's literally nothing on the web that is suitable for app development, and you have to build the entire world from scratch, one dependency at a time, every single time.
And of course npm audit fix will not fix it because in true npm fashion even a minor update can trigger cascading failures across large swaths of the code you didn't even know were pulled in.
> I know of a complex web app that has more than half a million entries in its yarn.lock file. Five. Hundred. Thousand. Dependencies (of dependencies of dependencies of...)
I can't say I've seen anything like that in practice. I don't know why the app has that many dependencies, or of an analogous mobile app of similar scale and complexity to the nameless example you've cherry picked.
> Because there's literally nothing on the web that is suitable for app development, and you have to build the entire world from scratch, one dependency at a time, every single time.
Bit exaggerated, but I take your point.
The point of TFA, if we go back to that, is that ideally more functionality should be folded into the browser to reduce this redundancy. The undermining of web browsers by vested interests is precisely what makes web apps insecure in the manner you've described. And here you are defending the status quo – so it's mission accomplished from the perspective of Apple and Google.
The unseen dependencies on any mobile device are the operating system libraries, which vary from vendor to vendor, and have far greater privileges than a web app.
> And of course npm audit fix will not fix it because in true npm fashion even a minor update can trigger cascading failures across large swaths of the code you didn't even know were pulled in.
I call `npm audit fix` quite regularly and without issue. If you let it go stale, you're going to spend quite some time upgrading everything, irrespective of package management system. Can't tell you how much time I've wasted on upgrades with Gradle/SPM/Cocoapods/Carthage. So my gut says unless you either haven't spent much time in the mobile app development world, or you're being a bit disingenuous to make your point.
I can't say I've seen anything like that in practice. I don't know why the app has that many dependencies, or of an analogous mobile app of similar scale and complexity to the nameless example you've cherry picked.
> Because there's literally nothing on the web that is suitable for app development, and you have to build the entire world from scratch, one dependency at a time, every single time.
Bit exaggerated, but I take your point.
The point of TFA, if we go back to that, is that ideally more functionality should be folded into the browser to reduce this redundancy. The undermining of web browsers by vested interests is precisely what makes web apps insecure in the manner you've described. And here you are defending the status quo – so it's mission accomplished from the perspective of Apple and Google.
The unseen dependencies on any mobile device are the operating system libraries, which vary from vendor to vendor, and have far greater privileges than a web app.
> And of course npm audit fix will not fix it because in true npm fashion even a minor update can trigger cascading failures across large swaths of the code you didn't even know were pulled in.
I call `npm audit fix` quite regularly and without issue. If you let it go stale, you're going to spend quite some time upgrading everything, irrespective of package management system. Can't tell you how much time I've wasted on upgrades with Gradle/SPM/Cocoapods/Carthage. So my gut says unless you either haven't spent much time in the mobile app development world, or you're being a bit disingenuous to make your point.
As a user, I actively avoid installing apps from restaurants and stores. Web apps are far superior and don't waste flash write cycles updating themselves repeatedly or complaining that they need to be updated if I turn off automatic updates. Also, web apps are easier to modify with extensions than native apps are to modify with Vanced-like patching.
Sure - that's just a prime candidate for a website isn't it? I don't see why you need any form of app for that.
Agreed. The problem with web ‘apps’ (as opposed to web ‘pages’) is that they are completely controlled by the remote server. They turn your computer into a thin client controlled by “the cloud” where every mouse movement can be used to track and profile you. This is why Google wants to crush Safari. The ideal is locally running libre software implementing open protocols. Web pages should be static documents only. Apple of course wants proprietary local apps so i dont support either Google or Apple’s vision.
You clearly never looked into how much tracking mobile apps have. There are a lot of tracking SDKs which literally track every click. At least on the web you can block things where mobile is black box.
> The ideal is locally running libre software implementing open protocols
In contrast to the typical mobile user, this is a very niche M.O. Not practical for most I would say.
This is exactly what mobile apps are as well though. All apps today are thin clients utilizing a remote backend
That's not even close to true, I suspect you're severely biased as to how you use a mobile device.
Only about half of my most used mobile apps are used online let alone 'a thin front end for remote backend'.
Bear, Obsidian, Camera, Activity / Health, Things, Photos, Pixelmator, Hue, Music, iMovie, Home, AiWriter, Prompt, Water Minder, Yomu - I use all of these primarily offline / locally.
Even the apps that are very much for use with online services aren't simply thin wrappers - they're proper applications that fetch remote data when online, store and process locally - Podcasts / Overcast, Reeder, Mail, Working Copy, 1Password (7), LunaSea, Audible, Plex etc...
And if I think about what the apps on my phone that are closer to "thin" clients - IMDB, Goodreads, Banking, LinkedIn, Amazon, Slack etc - all of which are pretty janky compared to those previously mentioned.
Only about half of my most used mobile apps are used online let alone 'a thin front end for remote backend'.
Bear, Obsidian, Camera, Activity / Health, Things, Photos, Pixelmator, Hue, Music, iMovie, Home, AiWriter, Prompt, Water Minder, Yomu - I use all of these primarily offline / locally.
Even the apps that are very much for use with online services aren't simply thin wrappers - they're proper applications that fetch remote data when online, store and process locally - Podcasts / Overcast, Reeder, Mail, Working Copy, 1Password (7), LunaSea, Audible, Plex etc...
And if I think about what the apps on my phone that are closer to "thin" clients - IMDB, Goodreads, Banking, LinkedIn, Amazon, Slack etc - all of which are pretty janky compared to those previously mentioned.
What do you think most apps are? Frontends to some faraway backend web service. With some TLC most users wouldn't know the difference.
Maybe for you - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254339
I think the issue is that generally speaking making an app takes more time and resources than building a website so it locks smaller players out and reduces choice to some extent. It makes things more centralised. Sure you can build something in react native but it requires a hell of a lot more skills than whipping up some HTML and pouring your heart out…
Forgive me for inferring your reasons, but the reason you actively avoid web based apps is because the web app experience is inferior to native apps because (or at least as the thread claims) Apple and Android actively sabotaged support for web apps favoring improving native features instead of improving and supporting web features.
No, they're terrible on the desktop where they've unfortunately become ubiquitous.
Agreed. Web apps are a last resort, to be used grudgingly with gritted teeth if no native apps are available.
I agree with you.
Regarding Chris Coyier's initial post "What does it look like for the web to lose" [1] and his conclusion "Let's ditch the idea of native apps. All web! All web! All web!" I've got to say, that's exactly how it looks like for the web to lose. By the web trailing the capabilities of native apps rather than innovating in what made the web uniquely successful.
[1]: https://chriscoyier.net/2023/01/04/what-does-it-look-like-fo...
[1]: https://chriscoyier.net/2023/01/04/what-does-it-look-like-fo...
PWA should have been killed by Google long ago like Stadia, OnHub, YouTube Go, Android things, etc.
It is fun to write a demo in a service worker where you draw a PNG of the Mandelbrot set but for the use case where a web application caches aggressively, preloads, works offline you'd need a framework running in the web browser to implement the cache and store the documents in the web browser -- the persistent storage options are not that great.
I wish they'd provided some way to hook into the cache mechanism of the browser directly. With a good framework, application is going to tell the framework how it wants to handle loading and maintenance. Back in the day Netscape 4 was bundled with Netscape Netcaster
https://money.cnn.com/1997/04/15/technology/netscape_netcast...
which was supposed to spool an updating static news web site to your cache based on declarative configuration. They should bring it back!
I'm not against what they are trying to do, but the implementation is lacking.
From the privacy point of view service workers are yet another way you can be tracked, or by which a web application can be run "in the matrix".
It is fun to write a demo in a service worker where you draw a PNG of the Mandelbrot set but for the use case where a web application caches aggressively, preloads, works offline you'd need a framework running in the web browser to implement the cache and store the documents in the web browser -- the persistent storage options are not that great.
I wish they'd provided some way to hook into the cache mechanism of the browser directly. With a good framework, application is going to tell the framework how it wants to handle loading and maintenance. Back in the day Netscape 4 was bundled with Netscape Netcaster
https://money.cnn.com/1997/04/15/technology/netscape_netcast...
which was supposed to spool an updating static news web site to your cache based on declarative configuration. They should bring it back!
I'm not against what they are trying to do, but the implementation is lacking.
From the privacy point of view service workers are yet another way you can be tracked, or by which a web application can be run "in the matrix".
All else aside, this:
> When Apple was a niche PC maker, it needed the web as a way to help potential customers de-risk the purchase of luxury computers. While it enjoyed outsized influence, the Mac never had enough share to create a sufficiently large software ecosystem w/o the web.
Just doesn’t track to me. The mac was a fairly popular native platform. Many early ios developers started out as mac developers. Macs were extremely viable for most professional users without the web.
> When Apple was a niche PC maker, it needed the web as a way to help potential customers de-risk the purchase of luxury computers. While it enjoyed outsized influence, the Mac never had enough share to create a sufficiently large software ecosystem w/o the web.
Just doesn’t track to me. The mac was a fairly popular native platform. Many early ios developers started out as mac developers. Macs were extremely viable for most professional users without the web.
Youtube without adblocker is a completely different experience. I hope web survives.
There's NewPipe if you want Youtube without ads on a native app :)
There is also YouTube Premium. If you are a heavy YouTube user, it is worth the money.
Totally.
You don't need the Facebook app to use Facebook on your phone, nor the Twitter app to use Twitter, nor the LinkedIn app... you get the idea. Your browser is perfectly capable of getting you on them, and remembering your credentials for next time.
And usually all you have to type in the URL bar is the 'f' or 't' or 'l' .
You don't need the Facebook app to use Facebook on your phone, nor the Twitter app to use Twitter, nor the LinkedIn app... you get the idea. Your browser is perfectly capable of getting you on them, and remembering your credentials for next time.
And usually all you have to type in the URL bar is the 'f' or 't' or 'l' .
And yet the apps are almost universally better. I mean using Facebook.com is painful compared to the app. But the same goes for most trivial apps that merely show an embedded browser and almost nothing else.
The one time I installed Facebook I found it inferior because it was ironically less native than the website.
Through the website photo uploads used my phone's native image picker which integrates with services I've chosen to use.
The app used it's own image picker which was limited to photos that were saved to my phone.
Through the website photo uploads used my phone's native image picker which integrates with services I've chosen to use.
The app used it's own image picker which was limited to photos that were saved to my phone.
Yeah, I believe you're right, but on the other hand, preserving what little privacy I have left is worth it to me.
Also not having a bazillion apps on my phone using up storage.
Also not having a bazillion apps on my phone using up storage.
The few apps people install are a bit better. In general people don't install apps, but if they do they just install facebook, chat, and streaming service apps. Only those companies have the resources to build a good apps.
Nearly ever other app is much worse than the web site in a mobile browser because most business just don't have the resources to build good apps.
Nearly ever other app is much worse than the web site in a mobile browser because most business just don't have the resources to build good apps.
It's what they make it to be. If they make a better app, then the app will be better. If they neglect the app and focus on the website, the website will be better.
So a google employee is defending google for using the exact same anticompetitive app store strategy apple did, and then promotes an attack on apple, the last browser vendor not financially dependent on google. Look, the EU app store regulations are great, but they should be paired with regulations that ban Google from abusing its search monopoly to subsidize its control over platforms like OS, browser and social media.
> the last browser vendor not financially dependent on google.
Apple takes billions from Google for them to be the default search engine. Unsure if that counts as 'dependant' or not, but it's not an insignificant amount of money, and Apple doesn't seem to be a in a hurry to give that up.
Apple takes billions from Google for them to be the default search engine. Unsure if that counts as 'dependant' or not, but it's not an insignificant amount of money, and Apple doesn't seem to be a in a hurry to give that up.
And yet Apple has thus bar made it impossible to use Chrome (and its clones) on iOS.
I once bemoaned Apple's insistence on WebKit; I now recognize that it's the only thing stopping the total takeover of Chrome on the Web, and a return to the dark ages of "this site works best with..."
I once bemoaned Apple's insistence on WebKit; I now recognize that it's the only thing stopping the total takeover of Chrome on the Web, and a return to the dark ages of "this site works best with..."
> a return to the dark ages of "this site works best with..."
We are there in every way other than the banner/badge being present on the website. I see no difference between today vs then from the point that one browser vendor is making browser specific hooks* that devs use that traps them into their browser.
*as in hook-line-sinker not coding hooks
We are there in every way other than the banner/badge being present on the website. I see no difference between today vs then from the point that one browser vendor is making browser specific hooks* that devs use that traps them into their browser.
*as in hook-line-sinker not coding hooks
I never use Chrome, even on the desktop, and have very few problems on the Web.
What problems do you encounter?
What problems do you encounter?
Firefox is my main browser for >90% of all browsing. Specifically, Netflix on macOS does not work in Firefox. There are other websites that for whatever reason will not function properly on FF. There are other sites as well, but I really don't have the inclination to list them off one by one for you. There's enough in my day to day to know that browsers are not equal, and for someone to even seriously consider touting that all websites work equally well in all browsers is just trying to be a troll in my book.
"for someone to even seriously consider touting that all websites work equally well in all browsers is just trying to be a troll in my book."
Who was touting that?
Meanwhile, I use Safari 100% of the time on the desktop and haven't encountered a problem with Netflix or anything else I can think of at the moment. I'm not saying that this one example disproves your claims; nor did I demand that you "list them off one by one." But by asking for examples to check out, I could actually join you in protesting against those who publish defective sites.
P.S. I just fired up Firefox 106.0.5, went to Netflix, and started watching a movie. So... I wonder what's up on your side.
Who was touting that?
Meanwhile, I use Safari 100% of the time on the desktop and haven't encountered a problem with Netflix or anything else I can think of at the moment. I'm not saying that this one example disproves your claims; nor did I demand that you "list them off one by one." But by asking for examples to check out, I could actually join you in protesting against those who publish defective sites.
P.S. I just fired up Firefox 106.0.5, went to Netflix, and started watching a movie. So... I wonder what's up on your side.
Same version of FF 106.0.5:
"Pardon the interruption
We're having trouble playing Netflix. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Firefox and try again. Learn more at support.mozilla.org/kb/update-firefox-latest-version. Error Code F7701-1003"
Of course, that's all non-selectable text to copy&paste, so any typo discrepancies are mine. So any type of "well, can't watch what I want to watch now" means it's broken in that browser.
"Pardon the interruption
We're having trouble playing Netflix. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Firefox and try again. Learn more at support.mozilla.org/kb/update-firefox-latest-version. Error Code F7701-1003"
Of course, that's all non-selectable text to copy&paste, so any typo discrepancies are mine. So any type of "well, can't watch what I want to watch now" means it's broken in that browser.
That sucks. Interesting that they specifically have a reference to Firefox, so apparently they expect it to work. I would call them and say make it work or refund my month's fee.
This is unacceptable. I don't know about you, but I actually take the time to call out any service provider for incompetence. Not enough people do, and that's what leads to the continual degradation of service and acceptance of shit (such as "this site works best with...").
This is unacceptable. I don't know about you, but I actually take the time to call out any service provider for incompetence. Not enough people do, and that's what leads to the continual degradation of service and acceptance of shit (such as "this site works best with...").
if i used my laptop to do my primary viewing of netflix, i might bother. however, my primary netflix consumption is on an AppleTV. it would cost me more in time to research why it doesn't work and probably more time to get it resolved than i have time to view content anyways.
it's not that i'm giving them a pass though.
it's not that i'm giving them a pass though.
> Netflix on macOS does not work in Firefox
Is this because of DRM crap, or some other reason?
Is this because of DRM crap, or some other reason?
Does it matter? It doesn't work, so a non-techy user thinks things are broken. Time for a new browser, and a mental note to argue with their kid/grandkid/niece/nephew/whoever told them FF was so much better to use.
It doesn't matter the why or where. If the devs made a site that only works in a specific browser, we are exactly where we were with IE6 bullshit.
It doesn't matter the why or where. If the devs made a site that only works in a specific browser, we are exactly where we were with IE6 bullshit.
> Specifically, Netflix on macOS does not work in Firefox.
Netflix works on Firefox Mac for me.
Netflix works on Firefox Mac for me.
Chrome runs on iOS, iPad and iPhone. Firefox does too.
No. Those are just branded skins over a WebKit browser (essentially Safari).
Yup. Its a strange situation, but basically Apple could fund development of Safari with iPhone sales, and as long as Google isnt too pushy about making web apps threaten the App Store monopoly, apple will gladly take a cool extra billion dollars a year to make Google the default search engine. But Apple is not dependent on Google the way Chrome and Firefox are.
Alex Russell works for Microsoft, as a PM on Edge.
He did used to be at Google, until 2021.
He did used to be at Google, until 2021.
I mean, I have a conspiracy theory that the new Edge was a coup to destroy Microsoft's web platform from within by "former" Google employees hired by Microsoft that I could spin you.
But Alex is just very much promoting the concept that Chromium be the sole standard implementation for the web.
But Alex is just very much promoting the concept that Chromium be the sole standard implementation for the web.
I'd believe that Alex still has a very Google-like view of the web, but not that he's secretly still compensated by Google
I don't disagree. Which is why I labeled it a conspiracy theory. ;) But I totally wouldn't be shocked to see it in a tell-all someday either.
You dont seem to understand how corruption works. Quid pro quo is hilariously easy to avoid doing. If he’s been told to do this by google, then in 5 years he will be back at google with a big fat signing bonus as compensation for sabotaging Microsoft. This seems unlikely tho. He just likes google and promotes it because he is “bought in”.
You have the history backwards. MS decided to switch to Chromium long before Chrome team googlers went over there.
> So a google employee is defending google
Who's Google employee here? Looks like the poster used to work for Google but now is working for MS.
> for using the exact same anticompetitive app store strategy apple did
At least Google does allow having a third party store, thus a third party web engine. This is a significant difference.
> should be paired with regulations that ban Google from abusing its search monopoly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google...
EU is well aware of this and periodically collecting lots of fines from Google for doing so. I don't remember the EU applying the same level of antitrust regulations for Apple, though it paid a lot for Double Irish arrangement.
Who's Google employee here? Looks like the poster used to work for Google but now is working for MS.
> for using the exact same anticompetitive app store strategy apple did
At least Google does allow having a third party store, thus a third party web engine. This is a significant difference.
> should be paired with regulations that ban Google from abusing its search monopoly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google...
EU is well aware of this and periodically collecting lots of fines from Google for doing so. I don't remember the EU applying the same level of antitrust regulations for Apple, though it paid a lot for Double Irish arrangement.
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"Snuff out" seems like clickbait. There's no way mobile browsers are going away. That's not the issue.
Meanwhile, I've never used a Twitter, Mastodon, or Reddit mobile app, for example. Also, Android keeps disabling permissions on mobile apps I haven't used for months.
There are a few mobile apps I use frequently. (Mostly from Google.) For everyone else, I'm not going to install your app.
Meanwhile, I've never used a Twitter, Mastodon, or Reddit mobile app, for example. Also, Android keeps disabling permissions on mobile apps I haven't used for months.
There are a few mobile apps I use frequently. (Mostly from Google.) For everyone else, I'm not going to install your app.
Well, start by having WebGL and WASM catching up with modern hardware, instead of lagging behind native tech for a decade, and this includes desktops, not constrained by the issues described on the posts.
WebGPU might finally get released this year, just in time to catch up with where Vulkan, DirectX and Metal were in 8 years ago, while forcing everyone to rewrite all their shaders.
WebGPU might finally get released this year, just in time to catch up with where Vulkan, DirectX and Metal were in 8 years ago, while forcing everyone to rewrite all their shaders.
The web (browser) will always trail the desktop, because the web is an inner platform, and no inner platform can develop faster than the platform it runs on. Also, the web has to be compatible across 3 major operating systems, so you need to build wrapper layers.
I've come to the conclusion that the browser shoudl have become a virtual machine host where every tab was its own VM. Then at least we could run normal apps on the web without WASM.
I've come to the conclusion that the browser shoudl have become a virtual machine host where every tab was its own VM. Then at least we could run normal apps on the web without WASM.
That is not the web - the web is documents and hyperlinks in addition to URLs. Sounds like you might want Fuchsia?
To be fair, this would be true if you just emerged from a 20 year coma.
Browser are the largest individual representative of web technologies (in terms of traffic, users). The three things you listed are all consumed primarily through browsers. And the article we're discussing explicitly is talking about applications- either on the mobile phone, or in the mobile browser.
No, I don't want Fuchsia, that's just another OS on top of the 3 we have, with significant restrictions. It was really just a tool for Google to have more power over Android developers and hardware manufacturers.
No, I don't want Fuchsia, that's just another OS on top of the 3 we have, with significant restrictions. It was really just a tool for Google to have more power over Android developers and hardware manufacturers.
> Well, start by having WebGL and WASM catching up with modern hardware, instead of lagging behind native tech for a decade
Exactly the reason why the web sucks: chasing the wrong targets and ignoring what is actually needed for development.
Just having proper controls is several orders of magnitude more helpful than having yet another way of building graphics from scratch. Too bad https://open-ui.org/ is twenty years too late.
Exactly the reason why the web sucks: chasing the wrong targets and ignoring what is actually needed for development.
Just having proper controls is several orders of magnitude more helpful than having yet another way of building graphics from scratch. Too bad https://open-ui.org/ is twenty years too late.
Mobile web designers are doing a much better job than Apple or Google could ever dream of when it comes to creating horrifically unusable mobile web sites and applications.
It’s almost like they’re in cahoots.
When they are so bad, either maliciously or not, that one would rather download an app or wait until a desktop browser is available, one has to wonder.
It’s almost like they’re in cahoots.
When they are so bad, either maliciously or not, that one would rather download an app or wait until a desktop browser is available, one has to wonder.
>When Apple was a niche PC maker, it needed the web as a way to help potential customers de-risk the purchase of luxury computers.
What does this statement even mean?
What does this statement even mean?
During that era, MacOS suffered from a severe lack of third-party software. This was the biggest thing keeping customers from purchasing Macs. Computers are only useful if they have software.
But lack of software wasn't an issue for websites, since Safari could, in theory, run any website as well as any Windows computer could.
But lack of software wasn't an issue for websites, since Safari could, in theory, run any website as well as any Windows computer could.
Same strategy as Google in the chat space.
Promote standards as an incumbent, then closed solutions once you reach a sufficient market share.
Promote standards as an incumbent, then closed solutions once you reach a sufficient market share.
Google also has another strategy: push and promote non-standards as if they were standards by publishing their specs in the form of a non-binding document on w3c.
Example:
- Already shipped in Chrome and advertised https://web.dev/webtransport/
- Status: Working Draft https://www.w3.org/TR/webtransport/ which means it not even close to being a standard (see why here: https://www.w3.org/2021/Process-20211102/#w3c-recommendation...)
Example:
- Already shipped in Chrome and advertised https://web.dev/webtransport/
- Status: Working Draft https://www.w3.org/TR/webtransport/ which means it not even close to being a standard (see why here: https://www.w3.org/2021/Process-20211102/#w3c-recommendation...)
While it enjoyed outsized influence, the Mac never had enough share to create a sufficiently large software ecosystem w/o the web.
In this era (~'98-'12), the web provided a bridge over a moat formed by a competitor's proprietary stack winning through momentum and network effects. The web went "over the top" of both Macs and PCs, and while Apple desperately coveted native app builders for the Mac, was at least savvy enough to know that if it could add the universe of great web apps to the Mac experience, it would be a market-reality help at point of sale.
In this era (~'98-'12), the web provided a bridge over a moat formed by a competitor's proprietary stack winning through momentum and network effects. The web went "over the top" of both Macs and PCs, and while Apple desperately coveted native app builders for the Mac, was at least savvy enough to know that if it could add the universe of great web apps to the Mac experience, it would be a market-reality help at point of sale.
I understand it like so: Apple computers are the luxury computers.
Up to the early 90s, most households didn't have computers; but when the Internet became mainstream from mid 90s onwards, more and more people bought computers to "use the Internet".
If Apple wouldn't have an offering/environment which allows for using the Internet (... Network stack, browser, e-mail client, dialup drivers, etc.), people would avoid buying Apple computers.
Up to the early 90s, most households didn't have computers; but when the Internet became mainstream from mid 90s onwards, more and more people bought computers to "use the Internet".
If Apple wouldn't have an offering/environment which allows for using the Internet (... Network stack, browser, e-mail client, dialup drivers, etc.), people would avoid buying Apple computers.
The other posts in the chain go into more detail. By improving and pushing the web experience on Mac, Apple gets access to a whole ecosystem of web-based application which make the Mac more valuable to customer, instead of relying solely on 3rd party native Mac application developers.
It's saying that small market participants benefit from open standards and compatibility. People are buying a different entry point into a massive shared resource, rather than choosing between a massive network and a niche player.
That makes sense. 'De-risk the purchase luxury computer' is such a strange phrase. Maybe it should be de-risk the purchase of a specialty computer? Hell an IBM PC could be considered a luxury computer compared to off brand IBM compatibles.
I use native apps only when I need the functionality of a native app: particular performance concerns / notifications / peripheral connectivity / etc.
But I try my best to not install any apps that I don't consider necessary. I feel everyone wants to push an app for what could be achieved trivially with a website (looking at you Xfinity).
But I try my best to not install any apps that I don't consider necessary. I feel everyone wants to push an app for what could be achieved trivially with a website (looking at you Xfinity).
I bought a new modem over the holidays. Xfinity required me to install the app to activate it. But their login system was broken. It was impossible to talk to a human over the phone because I had to go through the app. Really terrible experience. Had to lie and say I was cancelling to finally get a human on the phone to do this for me. Still can't log into their stupid web wrapper.
I thought I was going crazy when their website kept pushing me to the app and I couldn't find an activate modem link. Please, why? Why is this necessary?
they probably do something like switch your device's wifi network to the one that the router broadcasts to set itself up
for an app with wifi permissions it's trivial, but there is no API to do this through a browser so we're stuck downloading an app
i probably would not grant full network permissions to an app anyway
for an app with wifi permissions it's trivial, but there is no API to do this through a browser so we're stuck downloading an app
i probably would not grant full network permissions to an app anyway
Analytics probably.
"Web wrapper". What a great way to summarize the problem. Thank you.
Seconded. I don't care if your website is 10x slower, I'll use a website over a native app any day, and if you only offer a native app for something that could trivially be a website there's a 99.9% chance that I'll tell you to pound sand rather than use your service at all.
It's strange when I read about what some companies spend on apps (e.g. some crypto prices + news + educational videos) where they could've gotten away with Wordpress, Youtube and some API for the data. Instead of focusing on content, they spend months of multiple developers building an app, struggle with maintaining it on iOS and Android and have won the ability to ... I don't know, I guess you can now use the gyroscope and accelerometer to suggest shit coins to track?
Is "being in the appstore" worth that much because it's starting to be the primary thing people search when they're looking for something instead of Google?
Is "being in the appstore" worth that much because it's starting to be the primary thing people search when they're looking for something instead of Google?
> and have won the ability to ...
... track you a bit better and get paid a bit more easily (if with a hefty tax), but more importantly, they can be on the Home screen of users, which people will look at a billion times per day.
Yes you can bookmark a website - and nobody does, it gets buried in some submenu you don't even know how to bring back up. Yes you can pin a bookmark on the Home screen, but people don't know how - and even if they did, they likely wouldn't get a nice icon, and it would launch an irrelevant browser interface around it, and it would all feel a bit crappy.
Whereas, people know very well how to install an app. They'll automatically get a nice big logo on their home screen, and when they tap it the magic will happen as it's supposed to be. The big logo will remind them every other minute that they might want to access the service. Etc etc.
... track you a bit better and get paid a bit more easily (if with a hefty tax), but more importantly, they can be on the Home screen of users, which people will look at a billion times per day.
Yes you can bookmark a website - and nobody does, it gets buried in some submenu you don't even know how to bring back up. Yes you can pin a bookmark on the Home screen, but people don't know how - and even if they did, they likely wouldn't get a nice icon, and it would launch an irrelevant browser interface around it, and it would all feel a bit crappy.
Whereas, people know very well how to install an app. They'll automatically get a nice big logo on their home screen, and when they tap it the magic will happen as it's supposed to be. The big logo will remind them every other minute that they might want to access the service. Etc etc.
On Android at least, PWAs look like native apps.
Does that mean they look equally good or equally bad?
Being in the appstore, ratings, mobile singups... all that shit makes great manager objectives.
The ideal is FLOSS native apps, potentially with strong sandboxing, connecting to semantically-rich web-based APIs that provide any needed services. Which is pretty much how the Fediverse works.
Web sites are the second best; proprietary apps should be the last resort.
Web sites are the second best; proprietary apps should be the last resort.
How are websites not proprietary?
They are proprietary but they don't persist on your computer when you clear cache and close the browser, unlike apps that can linger and spy on you forever, even after you supposedly uninstall. Uber famously got in trouble with Apple over that, but who knows how many are doing it without getting caught.
I wish I could do that, but the convenience of FaceID auth for apps generally trumps the hassle of constant web site login-2fa for me, especially for those sites I don’t visit often.
Which is the point of the article. This is something that should be available to web apps, but there's no motivation from Apple/Google to make that happen lest they tank their app store profits.
Password managers provide a means of autofill with FaceID, which is the next best thing. This is how I log in to most native apps too.
Password managers provide a means of autofill with FaceID, which is the next best thing. This is how I log in to most native apps too.
The 1Password FaceID integration automates website auth for me.
I'm hopeful this changes with passkeys - whether in-app or on the web, they can just ask you to reauthenticate the same way.
I agree - and the additional benefit of lots less opportunities to track you in ways that you don't want to be tracked.
Or it being monetized in weird ways. Mobile apps (especially on iOS) are bizarre. Who is paying these $19/mo fees for a barebones yoga app? Apparently someone out there since every single app on iOS is pushing an extremely high subscription cost.
And Apple gets 30% of that! Crazy. For doing a code review and hosting a couple of mb of static data.
I find it absurd when people complain about taxes, but it's fine when a company taxes us for profit...
I find it absurd when people complain about taxes, but it's fine when a company taxes us for profit...
iOS and Yoga are both extremely popular among people for whom $19/mo is to cheap to even notice. Even if it's only 1% of the username, it's millions of users.
And in a better sandbox with fewer avenues to attack security.
Xfinity's app is a web wrapper anyway!
Firefox released a mobile OS (Firefox OS) in 2013. The aim was to encourage app developers use open technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, open web APIs). Development of Firefox OS stopped in 2015.
At the time I thought that Firefox was wasting resources on development on Firefox OS. But now I think I was wrong. Firefox could see the promise of a PWA (Progressive Web Apps) mobile future, but the tech was clumsy and immature. Perhaps Firefox OS was too early for the technology?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
At the time I thought that Firefox was wasting resources on development on Firefox OS. But now I think I was wrong. Firefox could see the promise of a PWA (Progressive Web Apps) mobile future, but the tech was clumsy and immature. Perhaps Firefox OS was too early for the technology?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
They were wasting resources not because the technology didn't make sense but because the business model didn't make sense. There was no way they were going to get distribution when Android was also free and had revenue share to boot.
I started in the web and had to move to native when the feature gap between platforms got too great to ignore and customers started demanding native experiences.
React Native made this a little easier, but it definitely did not mean “write once, run anywhere”. (It’s more like, write a half that runs everywhere and another half that’s split between your target platforms)
After using RN a bunch, I’ve found there are times when it shines and other times when it’s best to defer to the native language, but I keep using RN because it reminds me most of what I love about the web:
The best “write it once run anywhere” platform I’ve used to date.
React Native made this a little easier, but it definitely did not mean “write once, run anywhere”. (It’s more like, write a half that runs everywhere and another half that’s split between your target platforms)
After using RN a bunch, I’ve found there are times when it shines and other times when it’s best to defer to the native language, but I keep using RN because it reminds me most of what I love about the web:
The best “write it once run anywhere” platform I’ve used to date.
I really think there needs to be greater engine diversity on mobile and you should also be able to leverage extensions like ublock or tampermonkey for mobile to really be viable
I'm on android and switched to Firefox specifically because they support ublock on mobile and mobile chrome didnt.
I use uBlock origin on iOS and macOS via Orion. Works great!
I'd be more concerned about the mobile web if the web weren't such hostile ground for end users to host themselves. Web solutions are by and large difficult for end users to stand up, and just as difficult to compose thanks to the proliferation of standards that "just" require certain responses at certain well known paths, specific markup, and the like.
Author do realized that more than half of the world's population are still using outdated low cost Android phones thus using web technologies is just not possible.
For example, I had a project last year where the app will communicate via Bluetooth to a portable printer to be used for the factory workers. I'm not sure if the web technologies can handle this.
For example, I had a project last year where the app will communicate via Bluetooth to a portable printer to be used for the factory workers. I'm not sure if the web technologies can handle this.
We have waited years for alternatives like FirefoxOS, Ubuntu Phone, etc, and the other Linux phones to compete against the duopoly. Instead, these alternatives have decided to throw in the towel and gave up all by themselves with their vapourware (Ubuntu Phone) weak product offerings (Firefox OS) and the market just moved on and chose the duopoly instead.
Perhaps they weren't competitive enough to be interesting to users which is why we have this situation in the first place. These alternatives tried and failed. The only functioning alternative that is still alive is SailfishOS by Jolla which even that is almost no where to be seen anywhere. It's almost as if they are not trying hard enough.
The real winner here is Google which will go in the same route as Apple when they deploy Fuchsia on Chromebooks and Android phones which Chrome will essentially further dominate the web. Alternatives like Firefox have little to no chance at competing even with EU DMA which that just further entrenches Chrome's dominance.
Perhaps they weren't competitive enough to be interesting to users which is why we have this situation in the first place. These alternatives tried and failed. The only functioning alternative that is still alive is SailfishOS by Jolla which even that is almost no where to be seen anywhere. It's almost as if they are not trying hard enough.
The real winner here is Google which will go in the same route as Apple when they deploy Fuchsia on Chromebooks and Android phones which Chrome will essentially further dominate the web. Alternatives like Firefox have little to no chance at competing even with EU DMA which that just further entrenches Chrome's dominance.
> The only functioning alternative that is still alive is SailfishOS by Jolla
As a happy owner of Librem 5 and Pinephone, I respectfully disagree.
As a happy owner of Librem 5 and Pinephone, I respectfully disagree.
On an app-by-app basis it's easy to tell which mobile apps are built on web technologies, but has anyone figured out what percentage of "native" apps are actually web apps in native wrappers?
I'm waiting for the moment when you can just run an Android or iOS emulator inside the browser (through WASM, probably), and run any app you want on any platform, and safely.
While there are certainly political aspects, there are still technical issues that are hard to overcome. Palm has tried the "pure" Web-only approach and one of the main issues there was the inability to cache compiled code in a straightforward way -- the V8 compilation result is hard to untangle from the current context, partially due to the dynamic nature of the language -- leading to long app startup times. I hope that WebASM will finally fix this problem.
Modern v8 does on disk byte code caching, things have come a long way since Palm. In many cases PWAs have faster startup than native apps (also the on disk size of a PWA is usually an order of magnitude smaller than a similar native app.)
https://v8.dev/blog/code-caching-for-devs
https://github.com/thlorenz/v8-perf/blob/master/snapshots%2B...
https://v8.dev/blog/code-caching-for-devs
https://github.com/thlorenz/v8-perf/blob/master/snapshots%2B...
On an extreme tangent; it's, its follows the punctuation rules for singular 3rd person pronouns
it's is a contraction of it+is; e.g. it's good = it is good, c.f. he's good = he is good, she's good = she is good.
its is the possessive; e.g. its mouth is open, c.f. his mouth is open, her mouth is open. (ours, yours, theirs)
The consistent misuse of punctuation had been pretty jarring.
it's is a contraction of it+is; e.g. it's good = it is good, c.f. he's good = he is good, she's good = she is good.
its is the possessive; e.g. its mouth is open, c.f. his mouth is open, her mouth is open. (ours, yours, theirs)
The consistent misuse of punctuation had been pretty jarring.
Independent of UX, universality, etc.,
THE killer feature for native apps is that it takes a wide range of security concerns completely off the table.
THE killer feature for native apps is that it takes a wide range of security concerns completely off the table.
On the other hand, it adds a whole bunch of extra security concerns.
The browser is a pretty safe, controlled, and locked down environment for executing arbitary code from untrusted parties.
The browser is a pretty safe, controlled, and locked down environment for executing arbitary code from untrusted parties.
But it's not the reason the average user (outside of the tech community) reaches for native apps, most of the time it's because they are forced to. Like menu ordering apps at bars and restaurants. If it was a PWA, they'd use that and skip the installation step.
How does flutter fit into all this? Google doesn't want to have 3x teams for android, ios, and web...
As a user I want performant and ephemeral software. That is, software that has performant UI and has access to all the raw hardware and does not need installation/uninstallation and is basically downloaded on demand and garbage collected after a while.
Why aren't we there yet?
Why aren't we there yet?
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Is it just me, or he's talking like slow bloated web apps are a good thing?
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Alex Russell used to work on Chrome, and would write threads on Twitter about why it was best for Chrome to dominate the browser market and claim that “engine monoculture” wasn’t a problem for the web. Make of that what you will.
It doesn't help that the competition doesn't seem to be challenging this, though. Mozilla gets a ton of money from Google. Also their CEO is a lawyer who appears to not be very interested in Web Browsers. I suppose similar could be said about other CEOs though. It seems to just be a stuffy business thing.
When browser and OS development is libre volunteer and user-funded it will be pro-user. As long as it is funded by advertising and online services it will be pro-advertiser and pro-online service companies. Mozilla is funded by advertising.
If Mozilla can't get into Mobile and Desktop PWAs maybe someone else in the Linux GUI space will. I sure hope so.
I'm excited by https://qutebrowser.org/ It seems very user-driven but it's niche users which doesn't quite include me.
I'm excited by https://qutebrowser.org/ It seems very user-driven but it's niche users which doesn't quite include me.
Two different things can be bad at the same time.
If Apple hates a browser monoculture so much, they should have let Mozilla release Firefox (actual firefox) on iOS. There were ports ready to go multiple times but they love their walled garden lockdown too much. It was to their favor back when WebKit dominated the mobile web, but oops, they didn't invest enough in the platform!
FWIW I think if Safari had been released as a first-tier Windows browser, they might have been able to hold on and fight off Chrome together with Firefox. But they didn't put the effort in.
If Apple hates a browser monoculture so much, they should have let Mozilla release Firefox (actual firefox) on iOS. There were ports ready to go multiple times but they love their walled garden lockdown too much. It was to their favor back when WebKit dominated the mobile web, but oops, they didn't invest enough in the platform!
FWIW I think if Safari had been released as a first-tier Windows browser, they might have been able to hold on and fight off Chrome together with Firefox. But they didn't put the effort in.
> Alex Russell used to work on Chrome, and would write threads on Twitter about why it was best for Chrome to dominate the browser market...
Perhaps he is right. Even with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Chrome will just end up be the dominant browser on iOS.
At this point Google should just spin out the Chromium engine as a separate non-profit organization and allowing others to freely make their own browsers based on a standard browser engine like Brave, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi etc to use it but done freely without Google's complete control, just like what the Linux Kernel has done with 'distros' with the kernel as the central standard for anyone to freely make their own Linux distro.
Firefox has its chance to do that, but were too lazy and begged for Google's money and have done little to nothing to competing against Chrome's dominance and are just complaining when they are just not competitive enough whilst the market didn't care and moved on.
Perhaps he is right. Even with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Chrome will just end up be the dominant browser on iOS.
At this point Google should just spin out the Chromium engine as a separate non-profit organization and allowing others to freely make their own browsers based on a standard browser engine like Brave, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi etc to use it but done freely without Google's complete control, just like what the Linux Kernel has done with 'distros' with the kernel as the central standard for anyone to freely make their own Linux distro.
Firefox has its chance to do that, but were too lazy and begged for Google's money and have done little to nothing to competing against Chrome's dominance and are just complaining when they are just not competitive enough whilst the market didn't care and moved on.
How is Google currently preventing others from "freely making their own browsers based on a standard browser engine"? In no way, as far as I can tell. They are paying for the vast majority of the browser engine development, and all the companies you list are free to then build high quality browsers with minimal cost and little in the way of engineering competence.
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Tangentially related: Do Mastodon instances display funny for anyone else's mobile browser? For me, the pages are always scrunched to the left, with a mostly empty side bar taking 10% of the right side of the screen. I'm using a 12 mini though, maybe not a popular surface?
It’s a recent and controversial change. Ongoing discussion:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/19571
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/19571
Looks fine for me on Firefox on Android.
Same on a pixel 4a, not sure why they went with that layout on portrait screens
Maybe you should use a native Mastodon client?
SCNR…
SCNR…
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Speaking about snuffing mobile web, how come it's year 2023 outside, but we are looking at NEW social blogging platform which shows 12 lines of the useful content by 88 columns? And that's 12 lines if I count generously. Depending on the scroll position it can be 7 lines. Seven lines of text, cut into a disjointed spaghetti and surrounded by infojunk in a full screen browser window. Amazing.
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> If you want to build a native app across platforms, you’re either:
> - Writing it as many times as platforms you want to support
> - Using some middle-man software to write-once-compile-everywhere
Weeeeeeeell, there's also a third option that a lot of game developers/engines use: write most of your code in cross-platform C/C++ as an object file and write platform-specific loaders that do the OS-specific bits to start your program, load your object file, and call your main entry point. It's not that bad.
It's really the OS's that get nasty about adding more and more layers between our programs and the hardware they run on. Some of that is for good reason: ie security or debugging. But some aren't: vendor lock in, user tracking, backdoors.
> - Writing it as many times as platforms you want to support
> - Using some middle-man software to write-once-compile-everywhere
Weeeeeeeell, there's also a third option that a lot of game developers/engines use: write most of your code in cross-platform C/C++ as an object file and write platform-specific loaders that do the OS-specific bits to start your program, load your object file, and call your main entry point. It's not that bad.
It's really the OS's that get nasty about adding more and more layers between our programs and the hardware they run on. Some of that is for good reason: ie security or debugging. But some aren't: vendor lock in, user tracking, backdoors.
A good UI that everyone can use isn't as simple as just directly drawing to the screen and handling input. You also have to handle things like accessibility that require heavy interaction with the OS.
Sure. There are OS APIs for these things and other toolkits for it. Browsers are fine and all but I don’t think they’re the only reasonable option in town for cross platform development.
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I don’t know why people don’t just create blogs, rather than these 20+ piece Twitter/mastodon post chains. It’s hard to follow and feels disjointed, and fights against an authors motivation to go into detail or explore nuance
A) The HN guidelines [0] specifically request discussions not be about tangential annoyances (like the format of the content) rather than the submission itself. Now this potentially interesting discussion has been hijacked by the top thread, and most replies, being to yet another boring rehash of "why isn't this a blog post".
B) In this specific case, the author has written a lot of blog posts about this domain (though not this specific subject), and those have been on HN frontpage occasionally. So whatever reason they had to use Mastodon for this writing, it at least wasn't coming from ignorance or a lack of a platform.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
B) In this specific case, the author has written a lot of blog posts about this domain (though not this specific subject), and those have been on HN frontpage occasionally. So whatever reason they had to use Mastodon for this writing, it at least wasn't coming from ignorance or a lack of a platform.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
A) I'm a writer. The way something is written is a really important part of the meaning of a piece of writing. Style and formatting is meaningful and important, and isn't just window dressing. It is sometimes more important than the "content" of the message.
In my opinion at least.
In my opinion at least.
It's a perfectly fine opinion, it's just that whether we need further repetition of this opinion is a settled matter on HN.
Arguable, but I don't think it's a slam dunk that replacing the multimillenial standard interface for connected text (ie. text!) with an entirely novel chain of multiple artificially separated UI widgets is either tangential or just to do with 'format'. Personally I won't read them, so at a minimum these links when unidentified merely waste my time, and presumably that of other irritated commenters here. Maybe they should be identified. My personal preference would be a large red banner with a phrase like ("Warning: this is not a real piece"). But a small less tendentious icon would also be fine!
Arguable, but I don't think it's a slam dunk
The guideline is not that the form is not annoying - some people, like you, will find it annoying not matter what. It's that the complaints about it are boring, repetitive and corrosive to the forum just as any boring and repetitive thing is. That's very much a slam dunk of truth.
multimillenial standard interface for connected text
This is pretty ahistorical.
The guideline is not that the form is not annoying - some people, like you, will find it annoying not matter what. It's that the complaints about it are boring, repetitive and corrosive to the forum just as any boring and repetitive thing is. That's very much a slam dunk of truth.
multimillenial standard interface for connected text
This is pretty ahistorical.
> The guideline is not that the form is not annoying - some people, like you, will find it annoying
I'm not arguing that the guideline can be breached when some people find it annoying. That would be silly.
I'm arguing that posting articles as trains of social media posts may not be tangential nor merely a matter of formatting. If that's the case (I agree it's 'arguable'), then complaining about them isn't in breach of the guidelines.
> This is pretty ahistorical.
Claiming that posting multiple social media objects is a mere 'formatting' alteration to our legacy of textual culture is pretty ahistorical.
I'm not arguing that the guideline can be breached when some people find it annoying. That would be silly.
I'm arguing that posting articles as trains of social media posts may not be tangential nor merely a matter of formatting. If that's the case (I agree it's 'arguable'), then complaining about them isn't in breach of the guidelines.
> This is pretty ahistorical.
Claiming that posting multiple social media objects is a mere 'formatting' alteration to our legacy of textual culture is pretty ahistorical.
complaining about them isn't in breach of the guidelines.
It is, the guideline was written specifically to address the repetitive twitter complaints - you can find this explanation in the mod commentary. Also, pretty much anything repetitive runs counter to the rubric of the forum and this complaint is very, very repetitive.
our legacy of textual culture
Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.
It is, the guideline was written specifically to address the repetitive twitter complaints - you can find this explanation in the mod commentary. Also, pretty much anything repetitive runs counter to the rubric of the forum and this complaint is very, very repetitive.
our legacy of textual culture
Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.
> you can find this explanation in the mod commentary.
If the guidelines are unclear, and arbitrarily rule non-articles in as articles, then they must be rewritten to make the fiat clear.
> Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.
Irrelevant, as no-one made that claim. Your unevidenced insistence on your personal take on a novel tech as inarguably part of a historical tradition is just quiet shouting. I disagree, but agree it's arguable. You think it's not arguable, because it's obvious to you, and you believe what's obvious to you should be enforced.
If the guidelines are unclear, and arbitrarily rule non-articles in as articles, then they must be rewritten to make the fiat clear.
> Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.
Irrelevant, as no-one made that claim. Your unevidenced insistence on your personal take on a novel tech as inarguably part of a historical tradition is just quiet shouting. I disagree, but agree it's arguable. You think it's not arguable, because it's obvious to you, and you believe what's obvious to you should be enforced.
If the guidelines are unclear
Hence the clarification. Hopefully it's clear now.
no-one made that claim.
You made the claim - "the multimillenial standard interface for connected text". There's no such standard.
Hence the clarification. Hopefully it's clear now.
no-one made that claim.
You made the claim - "the multimillenial standard interface for connected text". There's no such standard.
> Hence the clarification. Hopefully it's clear now
Nope. Just that you personally rule something as tangential that I claim is not. Your personal preferences aren't present in the guidelines (I've read them). If you wish them to be so, please rewrite the guidelines.
> You made the claim
I did not. I claimed that there is such a thing as textual articles, ie. an existential claim. I didn't claim that all text, or all articles, or all textual articles, share a single format. They exist, and claiming that something entirely different (a chain of social media objects) falls under the same head is false. Claiming that two different categories of things are, in fact, different, is not 'tangential', or related only to 'formatting'.
Nope. Just that you personally rule something as tangential that I claim is not. Your personal preferences aren't present in the guidelines (I've read them). If you wish them to be so, please rewrite the guidelines.
> You made the claim
I did not. I claimed that there is such a thing as textual articles, ie. an existential claim. I didn't claim that all text, or all articles, or all textual articles, share a single format. They exist, and claiming that something entirely different (a chain of social media objects) falls under the same head is false. Claiming that two different categories of things are, in fact, different, is not 'tangential', or related only to 'formatting'.
Just that you personally rule something
Oh I see the problem. No, I'm not personally claiming this, I'm trying to explain the context and motivation of the site guidelines. Here are some relevant comments from the site moderator:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838162
and in endless glory:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a well-established off-topic topic.
please rewrite the guidelines
That is impractical for a number of reasons (i.e. the guidelines can't be exhaustive and also aren't, by design) which, coincidentally is also a subject of much moderator commentary. Happy to dig it up for you if interested.
I did not.
I mean, you talked about this millennial-something standard but there's obviously no such a standard. That's all. I'm happy to accept it as a rhetorical flourish and move on.
Oh I see the problem. No, I'm not personally claiming this, I'm trying to explain the context and motivation of the site guidelines. Here are some relevant comments from the site moderator:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838162
and in endless glory:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a well-established off-topic topic.
please rewrite the guidelines
That is impractical for a number of reasons (i.e. the guidelines can't be exhaustive and also aren't, by design) which, coincidentally is also a subject of much moderator commentary. Happy to dig it up for you if interested.
I did not.
I mean, you talked about this millennial-something standard but there's obviously no such a standard. That's all. I'm happy to accept it as a rhetorical flourish and move on.
As pvg won't permit a reply to his/her/its post, I'll reply to myself:
> The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this > up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a > well-established off-topic topic.
This is very obviously untrue. Almost every single thread in HN is littered with repetitive comments. Try posting anything about Linux, note-taking. Dare mention an Electron app, and if it's installed with an install.sh, then .. instant death. You'll be buried under an avalanche of near exact copies of comments that have been posted tens of thousands of times on HN.
This is manifest bad faith on the part of the mods in general or pvg in particular: an individual dislike on their part of this particular repetitive complaint, which prompted a vague guideline with plausible deniability in mind.
These aren't the kind of judiciously-applied guidelines I could willingly sign up to. Unfortunately we're not permitted to delete accounts here, so I'll remove my email address, log out, and stay out of the comments.
> The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this > up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a > well-established off-topic topic.
This is very obviously untrue. Almost every single thread in HN is littered with repetitive comments. Try posting anything about Linux, note-taking. Dare mention an Electron app, and if it's installed with an install.sh, then .. instant death. You'll be buried under an avalanche of near exact copies of comments that have been posted tens of thousands of times on HN.
This is manifest bad faith on the part of the mods in general or pvg in particular: an individual dislike on their part of this particular repetitive complaint, which prompted a vague guideline with plausible deniability in mind.
These aren't the kind of judiciously-applied guidelines I could willingly sign up to. Unfortunately we're not permitted to delete accounts here, so I'll remove my email address, log out, and stay out of the comments.
Comments about formatting tangents are especially repetitive and don't earn their keep by bringing anything valuable to the thread; complaining about tweet threading is pissing in the wind: people aren't going to stop threading (or boldfacing the wrong text, or setting things white-on-black background, or using 200MB font stacks, or breaking the back button) just because some person on a message board gripes about it. Beelow is a link to the 'dang comments about this, there's no uncertainty, and you should stop pretending like there's a live debate about whether HN welcomes comments about tweet threading on stories that aren't about tweet threading. It does not.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It's worth knowing that HN is a common law system, not a civil law one: there's the guidelines page, and then there's a long history of moderator interpretations and addenda, and to grok the totality of our rules, you need both. Think of the guidelines like the Constitution, and Dan as the Supreme Court.
Edit
This comment was originally snottier and stated that someone had already posted the mod comment link, but, nope, I was just wrong about that, and I do apologize. Chagrin is a powerful decongestant and so I'll be less snotty in the future.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It's worth knowing that HN is a common law system, not a civil law one: there's the guidelines page, and then there's a long history of moderator interpretations and addenda, and to grok the totality of our rules, you need both. Think of the guidelines like the Constitution, and Dan as the Supreme Court.
Edit
This comment was originally snottier and stated that someone had already posted the mod comment link, but, nope, I was just wrong about that, and I do apologize. Chagrin is a powerful decongestant and so I'll be less snotty in the future.
I was just wrong about that
You weren't, it just that this thread got a little out of whack with the self-reply-because-reply-link-was-hidden thing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34271184
You weren't, it just that this thread got a little out of whack with the self-reply-because-reply-link-was-hidden thing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34271184
As pvg won't permit
I'm a regular user here, I don't permit or not permit things. Click on the timestamp of a comment next time to reply to it if the reply button is hidden.
This is very obviously untrue
I mean, complaining about things being on twitter is offtopic on HN which I've gone to exhaustive and exhausting lengths to explain. You can't just declare it untrue, that would be, as you say, a personal preference of yours rather than the reality.
I'm a regular user here, I don't permit or not permit things. Click on the timestamp of a comment next time to reply to it if the reply button is hidden.
This is very obviously untrue
I mean, complaining about things being on twitter is offtopic on HN which I've gone to exhaustive and exhausting lengths to explain. You can't just declare it untrue, that would be, as you say, a personal preference of yours rather than the reality.
Another good way to promote that guideline is to flag the bejesus out of such comments. It really needs a bit of a cultural push to stick, sort of like plainly rude yelly comments get swiftly flagged.
It's to allow engagement for any part of the post chain.
With blogs it is hard to respond to just part of it - and it is hard to respond in most blog comment systems. Twitter solves both of those problems.
With blogs it is hard to respond to just part of it - and it is hard to respond in most blog comment systems. Twitter solves both of those problems.
But that's also terrible. Now anyone can take any piece of it out of context and even comment on it.
I mean it's worse on Twitter but anyway. These threads can also be used as a form of clickbait. Often on twitter the first tweet in a thread will have 3x the engagement of each following tweet.
It also promotes tighter writing -- it feels more egregious to have a filler tweet than a filler sentence in a traditional essay.
[deleted]
Could you please break your post up into multiple posts so that I can react to each part individually?
Copy and paste? Seems to work well enough on HN.
I don't really use Twitter and also prefer blogs to reading tweet threads, but one interesting advantage of the Twitter model is that it allows easy quoting/replying/liking of individual paragraphs / sentences.
I'm not sure if this outweighs the different reading experience, but that ability makes for something which is fundamentally different, rather than being a strictly worse version of a blog.
I'm not sure if this outweighs the different reading experience, but that ability makes for something which is fundamentally different, rather than being a strictly worse version of a blog.
Does it though? Quoting was always available: select the text, copy it, and go. Is it really the deciding difference? Do people perceive selecting and copying as a major friction?
> one interesting advantage of the Twitter model is that it allows easy quoting/replying/liking of individual paragraphs / sentences.
Agree, it's interactive. It's built to involve you and the audience in a very democratically equal way. Everything is a conversation instead of a soliloquy (blog).
HN also offers the same conversational interaction (with much better moderation). It's what pulls us in. It's interesting to see that every comment on HN, for example, is also an original, stand-alone post where you too become an author on this system : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34252904 : it's very balanced for all participants.
It's hard not to get pulled in by this conversational aspect on Twitter (and similar) when you have (1) a voice and (2) it's generally built to be equal within the system (if we gloss over some issues created by the number of followers that give some users a much greater voice). There's a sense of ownership that comes with this.
Agree, it's interactive. It's built to involve you and the audience in a very democratically equal way. Everything is a conversation instead of a soliloquy (blog).
HN also offers the same conversational interaction (with much better moderation). It's what pulls us in. It's interesting to see that every comment on HN, for example, is also an original, stand-alone post where you too become an author on this system : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34252904 : it's very balanced for all participants.
It's hard not to get pulled in by this conversational aspect on Twitter (and similar) when you have (1) a voice and (2) it's generally built to be equal within the system (if we gloss over some issues created by the number of followers that give some users a much greater voice). There's a sense of ownership that comes with this.
It's just easier to write. You start with an idea about where you want to go, and then every step forward is published, so there's no editing or revision possible. Sure, the quality of the writing might suffer, but it makes up for it by allowing so much more writing to happen without getting killed by second thoughts or hesitations. The prevalence of these threads on HN is a great example of how systems can succeed by optimizing for production instead of consumption.
Is that actually what's happening? Or do people write out the whole thing ahead of time and then paste it into Twitter/Mastodon?
(I had assumed the latter, but maybe not?)
(I had assumed the latter, but maybe not?)
Yes, my anecdotal conversations with people who post these things is that that's mostly how they happen. The closest I ever get to writing the whole thing out ahead of time is just writing two or three posts worth of text into the reply box and then splitting it up before posting. Maybe e.g. journalists or writers with more long-form experience do sometimes write out their whole thread ahead of time and then post it, but I think that's a very small percentage.
(For example, notorious thread-poster Foone elaborates on their process/why threads work for them here: https://foone.tumblr.com/post/700185724820078592/one-of-my-f...)
(For example, notorious thread-poster Foone elaborates on their process/why threads work for them here: https://foone.tumblr.com/post/700185724820078592/one-of-my-f...)
Is the 1/25 or whatever a guess? Or are those cases where people have composed them in advance?
Yeah, good question. Most of the threads I see are marked e.g. 1/, 2/, without a set end number, so yeah, I would expect that most ones that DO have it are composed in advance. (Although maybe not always posted all at once, because people definitely do still elaborate & extend on points and sometimes overrun their "pre-written script"). For example one Twitter user I follow who I most expect to write his threads ahead of time is Bret Devereaux, since he has significant long-form blog experience where he puts a lot of thoughts into high-level structure, pedagogy, etc. However, this thread of his from this morning does't have a set end-point: https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1610457226451484672. I wonder how it was composed?
I don't know why people complain about this on HN every single time, rather than accepting that people do and will continue to use these formats
It is a bit boring to see repetitive complaints. I suspect they just won't go away until it's made obvious from the link whether or not its worth clicking on (for those of us who won't read social media trains). Even knowing it's Twitter or Mastodon doesn't really help, because the poster might be sensible enough to post a link to a real piece.
Yes I always abandon these when I see they don't just contain a link to a blog post. You might have thought someone waxing about the merits of the web would have heard of hyperlinks (admittedly, I'm only assuming that's what he's doing as I'm not going to slog through a train of mastodon posts).
Because setting up a personal blog is a lot of work. And it’s not fun. And it requires maintenance over the year. Writing a sequence of tweets “just works”.
I say this as someone with a custom blog written in custom HTML/CSS/JS.
If it makes you feel better a lot of people are creating substacks, with no intent to monetize, to act as their blog.
I say this as someone with a custom blog written in custom HTML/CSS/JS.
If it makes you feel better a lot of people are creating substacks, with no intent to monetize, to act as their blog.
In this case, the author does have a personal blog already: https://infrequently.org
> I don’t know why people don’t just create blogs, rather than these 20+ piece Twitter/mastodon post chains.
Ultimately, it's because that's where the readers that they care about are.
And sure, they could post a link in a tweet. But I suspect that results in much less engagement than a tweet storm.
Don't get me wrong - I hate it too. But don't hate the player, hate the game.
Ultimately, it's because that's where the readers that they care about are.
And sure, they could post a link in a tweet. But I suspect that results in much less engagement than a tweet storm.
Don't get me wrong - I hate it too. But don't hate the player, hate the game.
I rage typed my message below, and I am happy I am not the only one!
People can read it natively in the social app they find themselves already in. Also makes it easier for such readers to share, increasing the post/thread's reach.
>> People can read it natively in the social app they find themselves already in
Not saying you're wrong, but... if it was a blog wouldn't that "native app" be a browser?
>> Also makes it easier for such readers to share, increasing the post/thread's reach
I think this is a big part of it; it's not about connecting with a few deeply, but many shallow connections. I'd argue that these authors care more about the sharing than the communication aspects TBH.
Not saying you're wrong, but... if it was a blog wouldn't that "native app" be a browser?
>> Also makes it easier for such readers to share, increasing the post/thread's reach
I think this is a big part of it; it's not about connecting with a few deeply, but many shallow connections. I'd argue that these authors care more about the sharing than the communication aspects TBH.
> Not saying you're wrong, but... if it was a blog wouldn't that "native app" be a browser?
But they come across the content scrolling through a social feed. They'd need to click a link, that opens a new tab (with goodness knows how many ads), to read the content.
But they come across the content scrolling through a social feed. They'd need to click a link, that opens a new tab (with goodness knows how many ads), to read the content.
You can also share a link pretty easily.
Most people dont scroll through their social feeds to click links. They come to social feeds to see content.
I get that some people dont want to have this experience. But this here is using the medium as intended. It fits in the scene & participates actively with others, in a way that going-off-and-doing-your-own-isolated-thing (then linking to it) doesnt.
It'd be so nice if we didnt have to keep having this debate every single time. There's advantages to both. Recognizing & accepting that different things can be happening in the world & that you should maybe have a little flexibility about it seems like the mature response I'd hope for.
I get that some people dont want to have this experience. But this here is using the medium as intended. It fits in the scene & participates actively with others, in a way that going-off-and-doing-your-own-isolated-thing (then linking to it) doesnt.
It'd be so nice if we didnt have to keep having this debate every single time. There's advantages to both. Recognizing & accepting that different things can be happening in the world & that you should maybe have a little flexibility about it seems like the mature response I'd hope for.
For longer posts it's hard to argue that any social media with a restricted number of characters per post is a good fit (all the arguments are other features that may be missing in blogs, not arguments against having a cohesive post that doesn't spread across multiple messages). OP suggested a blog post, but it could've been solved by creating support to larger posts as well. I don't think it's a bad debate to have, even if repeatedly, that's how things end up changing.
> For longer posts it's hard to argue that any social media with a restricted number of characters per post is a good fit.
Welll...
> (all the arguments are other features that may be missing in blogs, not arguments against having a cohesive post that doesn't spread across multiple messages)
Ok that's a pretty big category of exclusions. I can maybe picture a blog which is actually a number of subresources with distinct urls in it, where as we go down the page the url keeps updating itself. I can maybe imagine commenting per section. I can maybe imagine ActivityPub readers that can show the top resource & let folks expand the remainder if interested. I can recreate a better more featureful more complex medium, if I drastically rebuild what a page is/how it works.
There's a dozen structural advantages to using the web like a hyper-medium, not just a long scroll of paper. Yes we can try to import those features onto the virtual long-scroll-of-paper. But why? Many people like this hyper-medium. Im sorry but I think the pro-blog people need to fix their own problems & build better clients. Assimilate yourself & stop being petulant, acknowledge the superior medium that is more capable, and for god sake, start building some clients that hide all the stuff that you find so so bothersome to yourselves so you can please be less miserable people.
Welll...
> (all the arguments are other features that may be missing in blogs, not arguments against having a cohesive post that doesn't spread across multiple messages)
Ok that's a pretty big category of exclusions. I can maybe picture a blog which is actually a number of subresources with distinct urls in it, where as we go down the page the url keeps updating itself. I can maybe imagine commenting per section. I can maybe imagine ActivityPub readers that can show the top resource & let folks expand the remainder if interested. I can recreate a better more featureful more complex medium, if I drastically rebuild what a page is/how it works.
There's a dozen structural advantages to using the web like a hyper-medium, not just a long scroll of paper. Yes we can try to import those features onto the virtual long-scroll-of-paper. But why? Many people like this hyper-medium. Im sorry but I think the pro-blog people need to fix their own problems & build better clients. Assimilate yourself & stop being petulant, acknowledge the superior medium that is more capable, and for god sake, start building some clients that hide all the stuff that you find so so bothersome to yourselves so you can please be less miserable people.
Yes, why can't we all be flexible and mature, just like these disjointed social app threads that prioritize eyeballs, retweets and rash emotional responses over actual content are always promoting!
You definitely have captured the conventional social media boogeyman feel well.
I dont think it applies nearly as much to this grass-roots, open-source, distributed, protocols & standards based form. People want a way to talk, converse, connect. Sure there's ways to do it badly, for bad cause, with bad incentive, but this is & most activity on ActivityPub reads as dielectic. As an exploration & search for truth, a desire to understand ourselves, each otger, and the worlds about us better.
For sure, we can use communication & connectivity poorly. Are unwilling to imagine though that connection can be a force for good? ActivityPub here is a very very early attempt to create standards where we can explore & innovate, and hopefully some of those fronts indeed show promise of good, for raising up & improving... not just amplifying the rash, the base, the overly emotional, the manipulators.
At some point we have to be willing to get beyond the long long long scapegoating & demonizing we've done. We have had very convenient targets to hang the blame on. Maybe less is the only answer, the only possibly, & hope of ever being better is foolish & mistaken, but I hope we can at least entertain that as a question, a possibility, & not act with- ahem- rash emotional fear-based certainty. This seems like a new path where we can be involved enough, have the decisions available, to start pioneering im the addition of responsibility & moderation to our social systems. That possibility excites me, and I hope we can agree is worth trying.
Are there other avenues for hope you see? What else might possibly be worthy?
I dont think it applies nearly as much to this grass-roots, open-source, distributed, protocols & standards based form. People want a way to talk, converse, connect. Sure there's ways to do it badly, for bad cause, with bad incentive, but this is & most activity on ActivityPub reads as dielectic. As an exploration & search for truth, a desire to understand ourselves, each otger, and the worlds about us better.
For sure, we can use communication & connectivity poorly. Are unwilling to imagine though that connection can be a force for good? ActivityPub here is a very very early attempt to create standards where we can explore & innovate, and hopefully some of those fronts indeed show promise of good, for raising up & improving... not just amplifying the rash, the base, the overly emotional, the manipulators.
At some point we have to be willing to get beyond the long long long scapegoating & demonizing we've done. We have had very convenient targets to hang the blame on. Maybe less is the only answer, the only possibly, & hope of ever being better is foolish & mistaken, but I hope we can at least entertain that as a question, a possibility, & not act with- ahem- rash emotional fear-based certainty. This seems like a new path where we can be involved enough, have the decisions available, to start pioneering im the addition of responsibility & moderation to our social systems. That possibility excites me, and I hope we can agree is worth trying.
Are there other avenues for hope you see? What else might possibly be worthy?
I can't. Twitter paywalls after scrolling a little bit.
In some ways, I'm glad when twitter, reddit, etc. do things like aggressively pushing to the app or to login because it reminds me of the incentives involved and literally, actively discourages me from using their service.
You're not the target audience unfortunately. Without an account, and a curated follow list, you're likely not using the site for content discovery.
Requiring a free account is not a paywall. It takes less than a minute to create a twitter account.
That's a cost I'm not willing to pay.
[deleted]
I prefer this medium to blogs. And I’m an old beard who reads newspapers and prefers scheduled TV to streaming.
Tweet chains have a rhythm, no ads (with a decent client) and no filler.
Blogs (and worse: podcasts or videos) are full of fluff and filler, and often packed with ads.
Tweet chains have a rhythm, no ads (with a decent client) and no filler.
Blogs (and worse: podcasts or videos) are full of fluff and filler, and often packed with ads.
If you want them to be. There are plenty of personal blogs with zero advertising.
I don’t follow blogs though (I never understood the rss-blog era). I follow people and sites that aggregate and provide content for me, such as HN or Twitter. So I don’t really control where the blogs are hosted or how much ads they have. So when I see a HN link to Twitter or mastodon, I know what I’m going to get. When I see a link to joes blog dot biz, I’m less sure it’s going to be a good experience.
I don't know where this guy was when the iPhone came out, but this is backward. Steve Jobs reportedly did not want true third-party applications on the iPhone, and Apple pushed Web apps hard. They argued strenuously that Web apps were just fine.
Now... whether Jobs was convinced later, or the fact was that the tooling for native app development just wasn't ready... we all know where it ended up. But the author's revisionist history is bogus.