Why WebAssembly is a game changer for the web

I'm a native iOS engineer who's cringed every time someone has said "the web is the future." Today's web technologies (everything from React Native, to service workers, to Babble / transpiling, to Javascript itself) all have huge flaws, most of which stem from the fact that they're built for a platform never meant to handle today's use cases. And don't get me started on how disgusting Javascript is as a language... It's for these reasons that I've rejected web technologies for so long.

I've always said to my web developer friends, who I often debate this with, that "I'm all for the web being the future - if that future is nothing at all like the web today." WebAssembly is a huge step in that direction.

- I can write code in sane languages

- Code can be as cross platform or platform specific as I want (I imagine a future where UIKit is available on iOS through WebAssembly)

- The interface for accessing apps won't need to be through URLs. There can still be app-store-like search, but instead of needing to download and install an app, it can be streamed like a website (and stored on permanent storage if appropriate of course).

I imagine there will still be Javascript only sites for mostly static pages with little complex interaction, and there will still be native apps for super complex applications (AAA games, resource intensive software that can't be run in a VM), but WebAssembly will cover everything else in between.

I really do think this is how 2 very different worlds will converge. The quality of native paired with the ease of delivery and ubiquity of the web, will be a huge win for consumers and developers.

This sounds a lot like Java applets...