Show HN: Outdated world view is holding back the internet
jesperbylund.com
jesperbylund.com
I remember today pretty well.
The reason mobile devices aren't taken seriously as "computers" is because they're locked down and they're still treated as second class by most services. If I go on google.com right now, search for something and filter results by time then on a mobile device I can only choose between a few presets that go up to a year ago. On a desktop device (or requesting desktop mode before (!!) going onto google.com) I can enter arbitrary dates to filter by. This is the most popular website and it doesn't have feature parity on mobile today.
Mobile ui is also fairly unpleasant to work with compared to an actual computer. Typing is significantly slower too - I can only manage up to 40 wpm on a phone compared to 120+ on desktop.
I think mobile doesn't attract the kind of tinkering that desktop and laptop computers do because they're locked down. This leads to things not improving in a similar manner that they did on desktops. If I wanted to do programming on a phone, could I actually do it? The phones are clearly more powerful than desktops from ~10-15 years ago, but it was certainly easier to start programming with a desktop 10 years ago than it is to do it with a phone today.
Edit: everything on mobile seems to be so commercialized too. It's to the extent that it seems to push out actual free (gratis) software without monetization. Instead we get "free, but with ads". (Thanks, app stores.)
100% agree with that.
My point is that there's very little work that doesn't in some way touch mobile devices. Most people use them for communicating about work all day every day. And yet still, like you said, they're treated like second class devices. Despite clearly being the largest form factor in use!
I think this is the legacy of my generation I'm trying to put my finger on here.
As long as us millennials create services, they'll be desktop first. Because that's how we're used to thinking. But when gen Zs create new tools, I would be surprised if they weren't mobile first.
The internet should be mobile & touch first. Desktop and laptop computer are niche products. Most people use touch devices.