Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnuvince | Hacker News Reader

And I don't understand why. Take the two most popular mobile platforms, iOS and Android: people there routinely download and install new applications and typically never interact with Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or Instagram via their browsers. Why should the situation be different on the desktop? I feel that the efforts should not be going into making the browser into an OS that can run general-purpose software, but rather getting a packaging system that is cross-platform and easy for users to use. My own preference would be something based off of Nix so that you can avoid many problems related to library versions and whatnot, but anything where a user could be pretty much guaranteed that if he clicks "install", he'll be able to use his application in the next couple of minutes.

View on HN

> Why should the situation be different on the desktop? I feel that the efforts should not be going into making the browser into an OS that can run general-purpose software, but rather getting a packaging system that is cross-platform and easy for users to use.

Cross platform is a red herring. The iOS and Android app stores are not cross platform. Ease of use is also increasingly a red herring. The Windows and Mac app stores have been around for a long time and are quite easy to use. Yet they have not ushered in a shift away from Web apps on the desktop.

I think we should be looking at why Web apps have been successful on the desktop rather than pretending they have no advantages.

> I think we should be looking at why Web apps have been successful on the desktop rather than pretending they have no advantages.

I think there is a perception of "try before you buy" with web apps that is appealing. Even when apps/programs are free, you feel like you are giving something away by installing them.

It's like the old "How do you get an untested drug on the market? Pretend it's a dietary supplement". How do you get corporates and users to install a remote application runtime that lets them run programs from the internet? Pretend it's a document viewer.

I think you are right, this is a high technical debt solution for letting lay persons install software more easily. App stores already did a pretty good job at this anyway, and have the added benefit of curation.

The number of layers of in our software stacks grow faster than Moore's law can handle.

> App stores already did a pretty good job at this anyway

Then why isn't the Mac App Store (to name an example) a runaway success?

I kind of answered this with a comment above that mentions "try before you buy". Of course I am just guessing.

Mobile app stores are junkyards with terrible discoverability and they have a captive audience.

> people there routinely download and install new applications and typically never interact with Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or Instagram via their browsers. Why should the situation be different on the desktop?

Er, because that would be really silly.

I like reading HN from time to time. I would never install an app, because I don't use it frequently enough. I definitely would never go through the pain of installing a HN app every time I wanted to read HN. I really doubt I'm alone or even abnormal in that regard.

That's the beauty of a browser: I can be reading HN in under a second when I want to, with no cluttering of my desktop just so I can read HN from time to time.

I don't imagine HN requires web assembly or javascript to work, so it isn't a good example. But your point is right.

I think maybe application sandboxing is an OS job, and the browser should do the caching and invoking of the operating system sandbox.

I'll go a step farther, I typically don't install apps on my phoens.. why, because most of them have additional spyware and ask for permissions they should never need... I uninstalled Facebook over a year ago, as it was the biggest battery user... I get annoyed at websites that don't work on my phone, and more so for sites that try to get me to install an app, where there's no advantage to the stand alone app.

> Why should the situation be different on the desktop?

Because users want it to be. Whenever there isn't a significant performance hit people will always choose the browser solution. The only reason people download apps is because of performance and data limitations. Take those away and people will use the web based version.

> people there routinely download and install new applications

You should look at the data on that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com