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Comment by pimmen | Hacker News Reader

This really destroyed my day. I really have a big problem staying positive for at least a day now that you've eloquently expressed what I've had a creeping feeling of but just quite couldn't word in any discussion.

As computers become "locked app collections" they become appliances, appliances business and government institutions can control and regulate. "Can you make the iPad just not do that thing?"

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ok honestly i dont understand this fear. isn't the open web the antithesis of the locked appstore?

Yes, but:

1) Some would say that the open web isn't so open anymore, and is under constant assault. One example might be the recent W3C adoption and endorsement of EME.

2) The fact that the open web "lost" in the battle for mobile dominance is a thing. Most "serious" apps have a native version on at least iOS and Android, and the webapp version (if there even is one) is usually a worse experience.

I would like to think the open web has not lost yet, and that progressive web apps still have a great chance of taking over. Nobody wants to develop apps for at least three platforms. Nobody wants half their user base use old versions. Nobody wants to fear being dropped from some walled garden without any recourse.

There are still good technical reasons for some native apps, but that will dwindle more and more.

For the point of the developer, maybe. From the point of the user, not really; at least for many of them I can disable updates and keep running them even if the company goes bankrupt. The ones that depend on cloud services are arguably the worst of both worlds, though.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

Not quite: the data is then locked away with the owner of the website, who can also surveil its usage and show you ads. Or ban you.

The only way for the "open" web to evolve is for Google, Apple and Microsoft to agree on a feature, spec it out and roll it out to their different platforms. All anyone else can do is twiddle their thumbs hoping they don't fuck it up.

We sandboxed away innovation, so now all we have is web apps that process text, video and audio all in the same way.

Sorry :(

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