The article refers to the JS-industrial-complex but only has stats for NextJS[1]. Maybe other frameworks are better? I would love to see a similar chart for the showcases of other frameworks.
I'm looking at the list of top websites and thinking "when have I ever wanted to install the mobile app?" The only one I see that I use is Spotify. Maybe the time spent on mobile is in other apps?
But I'm probably an outlier because I spend most of my time on websites, even on phone and tablet.
It would be nice to see this broken down by market segment. I don't see any banks in the list. I use my bank's app for certain reasons like depositing checks and Zelle.
>But I'm probably an outlier because I spend most of my time on websites, even on phone and tablet.
Meanwhile our users are clamoring for app version of our web app, even though it's just a web wrapper. I guess some people just have a "there's an app for that" mentality.
This is a very good article and I agree with most of it. I never really understood why React and Angular became big for the general web. They have a lot of usage in enterprise applications, where you typically access them from a “pc”, but even then they suck on the tablets your employees drive around with. At least for the most part they don’t suck that much worse than the terrible native clients that came before (and still do in the rare case that a supplier actually build a native mobile app). Why that spread to the wider web is beyond me though. I get why you would use it for personal projects if it’s your day time job anyway, but a page reload never hurt anyone.
I personally think that the most responsible “father” is finance. The article states that there is more money with the web, but in my experience it’s far easier to lock down payments through apps. I agree that part of this is because native apps are better on mobile, but they are also much easier to work with and consume. It’s not easy to make payments function well on the web while in a native app it’s just a click with well powered api behind it. Serving both users and developers. Now, it probably could be easier on the web, but who would deliver it? The article calls out Apple and to some degree Google as guilty of not making browsers competitive with mobile apps, but why would they? If anything it’s in their best interest to keep the web shitty on mobile.
>I never really understood why React and Angular became big for the general web.
As opposed to what? Server side rendered pages with random jquery snippets sprinkled around for interactivity? I prefer the reactive model far more than manually trying to update the page myself.
I have some sympathy for this viewpoint. And I think Alex’s heart is in the right place—Nextjs is a dumpster fire and react server components are when react finally jumped the shark for me.
Maybe if we had HTML6 we wouldn’t be in this scenario. HTML5 was great but form building on the web (without JS) is a second-rate experience. And it’s even more miserable once JS is in the mix, but hey developers can provide a much better UX for end users than HTML and CSS alone could possibly provide.
Sorry Alex, but without JS the web would have died a decade ago as phones took over. It’s only JS that keeps us in the ring.
HTML can never be improved, that is at the very foundation of its current form. We are 20 years into the takeover from the W3C and still can't even do a PUT request without JS, nevermind anything approaching even one tenth of the functionality of XForms.
The web of semantic documents died years ago, it's an application platform now and that means JS. HTML is naught but a payload carrier.
He's not opposed to JS entirely (he specifically praises a handful of JS-based tech like ServiceWorkers), more so the all-JS single page type of app. To be fair he definitely could have been more clear about what he's talking about and what lines he's drawing.
Because their performance falls below acceptable levels specifically on (relatively slower) mobile devices. It takes a looong time for him to get around to it, but performance (specifically UI latency) is the crux of the whole article, as I read it at least.
Yeah, I read this (and some of his linked articles) as pointing out that Apple are specifically killing browser performance and features so that PWAs cannot compete with apps on iOS.
Specifically because they can't claim 30% of revenue from web apps.
The author actually links to the NextJS page for server components as "a tacit acknowledgement that their shit stinks". I guess this is how you acknowledge progress if you want to write an article in the tone that is expected on HN and mastodon now.
The article refers to the JS-industrial-complex but only has stats for NextJS[1]. Maybe other frameworks are better? I would love to see a similar chart for the showcases of other frameworks.
[1]: https://infrequently.org/2024/10/platforms-are-competitions/...
I'm looking at the list of top websites and thinking "when have I ever wanted to install the mobile app?" The only one I see that I use is Spotify. Maybe the time spent on mobile is in other apps?
But I'm probably an outlier because I spend most of my time on websites, even on phone and tablet.
It would be nice to see this broken down by market segment. I don't see any banks in the list. I use my bank's app for certain reasons like depositing checks and Zelle.
>But I'm probably an outlier because I spend most of my time on websites, even on phone and tablet.
Meanwhile our users are clamoring for app version of our web app, even though it's just a web wrapper. I guess some people just have a "there's an app for that" mentality.
I think what youre missing is that most of these are just websites, not "apps". And they suck
This is a very good article and I agree with most of it. I never really understood why React and Angular became big for the general web. They have a lot of usage in enterprise applications, where you typically access them from a “pc”, but even then they suck on the tablets your employees drive around with. At least for the most part they don’t suck that much worse than the terrible native clients that came before (and still do in the rare case that a supplier actually build a native mobile app). Why that spread to the wider web is beyond me though. I get why you would use it for personal projects if it’s your day time job anyway, but a page reload never hurt anyone.
I personally think that the most responsible “father” is finance. The article states that there is more money with the web, but in my experience it’s far easier to lock down payments through apps. I agree that part of this is because native apps are better on mobile, but they are also much easier to work with and consume. It’s not easy to make payments function well on the web while in a native app it’s just a click with well powered api behind it. Serving both users and developers. Now, it probably could be easier on the web, but who would deliver it? The article calls out Apple and to some degree Google as guilty of not making browsers competitive with mobile apps, but why would they? If anything it’s in their best interest to keep the web shitty on mobile.
>I never really understood why React and Angular became big for the general web.
As opposed to what? Server side rendered pages with random jquery snippets sprinkled around for interactivity? I prefer the reactive model far more than manually trying to update the page myself.
I have some sympathy for this viewpoint. And I think Alex’s heart is in the right place—Nextjs is a dumpster fire and react server components are when react finally jumped the shark for me.
Maybe if we had HTML6 we wouldn’t be in this scenario. HTML5 was great but form building on the web (without JS) is a second-rate experience. And it’s even more miserable once JS is in the mix, but hey developers can provide a much better UX for end users than HTML and CSS alone could possibly provide.
Sorry Alex, but without JS the web would have died a decade ago as phones took over. It’s only JS that keeps us in the ring.
HTML can never be improved, that is at the very foundation of its current form. We are 20 years into the takeover from the W3C and still can't even do a PUT request without JS, nevermind anything approaching even one tenth of the functionality of XForms.
The web of semantic documents died years ago, it's an application platform now and that means JS. HTML is naught but a payload carrier.
He's not opposed to JS entirely (he specifically praises a handful of JS-based tech like ServiceWorkers), more so the all-JS single page type of app. To be fair he definitely could have been more clear about what he's talking about and what lines he's drawing.
All the desktop apps he cited that are a threat to native are SPA’s so it doesn’t seem like he hates them everywhere.
I agree though it’s very odd that desktop web apps are serviceable, while they universally are horrible on mobile.
Because their performance falls below acceptable levels specifically on (relatively slower) mobile devices. It takes a looong time for him to get around to it, but performance (specifically UI latency) is the crux of the whole article, as I read it at least.
Yeah, I read this (and some of his linked articles) as pointing out that Apple are specifically killing browser performance and features so that PWAs cannot compete with apps on iOS.
Specifically because they can't claim 30% of revenue from web apps.
He has dozens of other exceptional essays on his site, and plenty on social media and conference talks. Check them out.
The author actually links to the NextJS page for server components as "a tacit acknowledgement that their shit stinks". I guess this is how you acknowledge progress if you want to write an article in the tone that is expected on HN and mastodon now.
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