You still haven't. The whole point of my comment is that you haven't, and I brought up specific points that remain un-addressed by any of your comments in your thread, despite your insistence. Linking to comments that largely consist of the next layer of "I already addressed your points elsewhere!" is not a response. The world exists beyond Apple, and "Apple decrees it" is not a sufficient to explain much of your claims.
If you don't care to engage with the substance of my points, fine, nobody is owed discussion, but this style of conversation is deeply unproductive and I believe even you are losing track of what you have and haven't said.
>You have points, I agree that web technology is well suited in 2025 to make interactive applications. I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential. And while Electron is largely skewered for being bloated and heavy, the web can be fast and fluid.
The main topic originated through OP's "why some users demand a 'native' app when the web app should be enough" for which I provided explanations as to why web apps haven't lived up to their potential i.e. conflict of interest and the corresponding sabotage by a gatekeeper in contrast to the manufactured narrative of "they are unpopular because they suck". That's a false narrative which I've explained in many comments:
- "A Progressive Web App, if allowed to reach its full, un-sabotaged potential, is the technological manifestation of the Digital Markets Act's goals. So it would be utterly absurd for Apple to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the DMA, just to let PWAs pass which achieves the exact same goals."
- "The reason I focused on Apple is because its actions are one of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat that is PWA. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense of its walled garden that makes maximum taxation possible."
Since you've stated that "I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential" you confirmed my thesis. That's why I stated: "I already responded to any of your points that are RELEVANT to the CORE DISCUSSION"
>But you haven't proven that web apps don't feel janky, fragile, and out of place.
That's not even part of the core issue and it has still been explained in my post anyway, which you even confirmed by saying "I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential" and is also expressed here:
- Apple's ban of third party browsers on iOS is deeply anti-competitive, STARVES the Safari/WebKit team of funding and has STALLED innovation for the past 10 YEARS and PREVENTED Web Apps from taking off on mobile. (https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...)
-Deep System Integration
Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference.
- Web App Equality
All artificial barriers placed by gatekeepers must be removed. Web Apps if allowed can offer equivalent functionality with greater privacy and security for demanding use-cases.
These are all factors that have already been mentioned and they fix all the real issues that are not the product of active sabotage.
Furthermore, I'm using many web apps like Discord and Visual Studio Code and they do not feel janky, fragile or out of place, that's your subjective perception. And even if that were an objective fact, which they are not, it would still not be relevant to the core discussion since they are not inherent to the technology but product-management related trade-offs that can be improved and fixed.
>The web's internet-native status means a bad internet connection or a brief crossing through a dead zone will kill almost any web app. Yes, there's strategies around this with web workers nowadays, but those are quite complex to implement for even simple applications and often aren't worth the effort to do anything more than pop up a branded "you're offline" page.
Your first claim is just factually wrong, but you admit that in the following statement which contains another claim that is also wrong. Those are exactly the kind of problems that PWAs solve and the user experience in that regard has been steadily improving (see also https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/local-first )
>An app can be completely cut off from the internet, it doesn't have that base assumption of network connectivity and isn't built from the ground up from network-based parts.
That's just straight up nonsense. Any native or web app that relies on internet connectivity will be equally affected. Any native or web app developed with a local-first or local-only approach will work perfectly fine without internet. You clearly have outdated knowledge on the matter. (see https://whatpwacando.today)
So I really had addressed your points that were relevant to the core issue, but you just wanted to nitpick details that had already been partially or fully addressed and are also insignificant in the bigger picture of the topic and technological progress in general. Those ones you listed are based on your subjective experience, your outdated knowledge on the tech or simply a transitory state of software that can be easily improved since they are not an inherent technological limitation.
>Ah, yes, the conversation gets quite tidy and easy for you to manage if you slather everything with a layer of "that's subjective!" "that's not core!" "that's not true in a complex edge case that's inconvenient for multi-page PWAs to set up and is largely if not entirely unused for anything but branded 'no connection' pages out in the wild!"
You claimed that web apps feel "janky, fragile and out of place" which many people, including myself, don't agree with. So how are you whining about us saying "that's subjective!"? It just factually is. Web Apps like Discord or Visual Studio Code could have never ever become such popular apps if your subjective experience were the dominant perspective, but it's not. Many of the criticisms are completely outdated, the most prominent of which seems to be the file size of the resulting app. For me that's simply irrelevant, because disk space is cheap.
>I largely agree with you, dude. You yourself briefly recognize that and appear to try to hold that against me for some reason. But your blindness to what you consider non-core or what you consider a subjective non-issue will make you a less effective advocate.
You agreed with my thesis and I didn't bring that up to "hold it against you" but to make you understand that you're arguing insignificant details now that are not inherent technological limitations which derail the conversation and lead to exactly this kind of redundant never ending unproductive back and forth....
>'m not going to go through it point by point because I can't. You ignored and hand-waved away the things I care about and was interested in discussing for a hand-wavy future that doesn't exist and we have no clear path to.
No you can't go through it point by point because I supposedly "ignored or have-waved" anything, but the opposite - I've systematically addressed every single of your claims, most of which, were either subjective opinions not shared by others or outright false claims based on outdated knowledge.
>We don't have deep system integration. We don't have native UI elements on the web. We don't have many things, and while Electron is clearly suitable for many purposes, it is not the web platform and is part of what's keeping it from reaching its full potential.
Why are you repeating stuff like you are the one who just discovered them, when you are literally just regurgitating points that i've already listed in my original posts from a day ago.
>The web's incredibly lightweight, flexible, and powerful! But we can't talk about the problems and work to get a better future if we just ignore them.
Nothing has been ignored, I've listed all the issues and also addressed all your points. The issue is that you've derailed the conversation by nitpicking insignificant details that are not inherent technological limitations but choices made by apps and their product-management which are trade-offs based on cost/time/benefit.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44694037
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44692287
For the rest refer to https://whatpwacando.today