
Is The Web Dying? - amasad
https://medium.com/p/b2977dbee814
======
captn3m0
The article misses one point: people were playing games on their desktop
machines even before smartphones were the norm. Just because people spend 20%
of time on mobile devices "browsing" doesn't mean the web is dying.

The time-spent statistic fails when you think of what all users were doing on
their desktops other than browsing. The open web was not killed by Microsoft
Word, and it won't be killed by Farmville either.

~~~
eCa
Exactly. And 18% of the time is spent on Facebook. Does it really matter if
Facebook users do it via the web or an app?

------
eksith
That depends on your definition of "Web". If you mean the proliferation of
watering holes (including this one), then the old web is dying. I've seen a
few new nuggets of gold on NeoCities, but people's proclivities toward
building "websites" seems to be on the wane.

I blame search engines for this as much as anything. Back in the days of the
webring, the only guaranteed way you could come across a site that's relevant
to what you were browsing for was to see whether it was linked on the current
site.

I.E. "Surfing" actually meant something.

The web is not an application.

~~~
dllthomas
Whoa, I'd almost completely forgotten about "webrings". These days, links and
targeted advertising play something of a similar role, but not quite the same
thing...

~~~
eksith
They're not completely gone. I think "Blogroll" filled that void for a bit,
before that too was taken over by ads. The next step was public bookmark
sharing, like Stumbleupon or Delicious. Still, those services feel a bit
sterile for my taste.

Something nostalgic and hard to replace like a hand crafted HTML link on your
own site carries a bit more weight with me.

------
integraton
The proliferation of mobile makes web traffic go up, not down. Mobile is a
bigger slice of the pie, but the entire pie is bigger. Desktop web traffic
itself appears to be growing, not shrinking.

I've had to correct the distortion of these numbers before
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847337)),
and I'll do it again. Using Wikimedia as an example, as mobile accounts for a
bigger _share_ , overall traffic is growing _significantly_ , and even
_desktop traffic is growing_ , not declining:

Wikimedia June 2012: 149,085 M requests -
[http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2012-06/Squ...](http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2012-06/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm)

Wikimedia June 2013: 223,725 M requests -
[http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2013-06/Squ...](http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2013-06/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm)

As you can see, Windows declined in _share_ from 70.45% to 56.10%, but total
number of Windows desktop requests _grew_ from 105,035M to 125,520M. Similar
pattern with Mac Desktop.

Mobile means more web traffic, not less, and desktop web traffic is also
growing.

~~~
cageface
You make a good point. I think it's also important to keep in mind that mobile
may be growing but it's also becoming increasingly difficult to build a
software business on mobile. The top 20 apps on both leading platforms are
gimmicky IAP games and users have been trained to complain about paying more
than $2 for anything.

If I were starting a new software business today it's very likely I'd
completely ignore mobile and focus on the more lucrative desktop/business
market.

~~~
hippee-lee
> users have been trained

I'm not sure about that, users are just cheap in general. That's why sales and
discount mega stores are so successful.

Speaking for myself, the more apps I buy, the more I'm willing to spend on a
well crafted or useful piece of software with the expectation that gimmicky
ads will not be there and the in app purchases actually do add value on top of
the purchase.

Two apps in the $8-$20 range that I regularly use right now are Gaia GPS &
Paper by 53 (although I'm slowly swapping that out for Procreate).

------
randomdata
The web _application_ may be dying, but that is in large part because the
technology was never well suited to the task in the first place.

When it comes to what the web does well, a collection of hyperlinked documents
full of information, mobile devices are not necessarily how people want to
consume that kind of data. Despite having a home full of mobile devices, I
still reach for the computer when I want to dive deep into a subject.

~~~
amasad
I see the web as a collection of information and information processors
(applications) and don't see how can one exist without the other.

~~~
randomdata
An application has a more narrow definition than an information processor. An
application must serve the user.

For instance, if you wrote a piece of software that converts LaTeX documents
into HTML upon request, I would not consider that a web application. As I take
it, it would meet the definition of an information processor, however.

If you built a full accounting system that presents its user interface in a
web browser, I would consider that a web application. The scope is quite
different.

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bsimpson
That chart is bogus. There are way more than 2 million desktops in the world.
Did you mean billion?

Moreover, most of the apps on your phone are native front-ends for web-facing
APIs:

\- Facebook

\- RSS readers (Pulse, Flipboard)

\- E-mail

\- Chat

If you think of the web as strictly HTML documents, then yes, usage patterns
may be shifting towards native. But, the core-concept of the web is really a
global network of interoperable machines that anyone can enhance. It's a
world-wide watering hole. If you take this broader view of the web, it's
thriving more than ever before.

It's a bit alarmist to imply that this network is dying because HTML may be
displaced as the primary interface.

(Incidentally, the biggest reason this is happening is because Apple's
interest is in making proprietary apps awesome and WebKit good-enough.
Mozilla, Google, and many other community players are working to bring native-
quality APIs to the web to preserve its platform-agnostic nature. As long as
Apple dominates developer mindshare, they'll have an uphill battle.)

~~~
general_failure
Last para is Total FUD.

Why do people who have no actual knowledge feel inclined to comment on things
they have no idea about?

Have you tried android webview and ios uiwebview? We'll let me tell you -
android webview hasn't been updated for 3 years and has no features that you
care about. Websockets xhr2, a fast canvas and I could go on. None of this is
there. In fact googles webview is the main reason people are writing native
apps. Do not get misled by chrome. Chrome and webview are totally different.
Uiwebview is actually quite perform ant and modern. The only thing is it has
no js jit but you cannot call them out on that when android webview is a joke.

Seriously try it before spreading FUD.

~~~
bsimpson
It's what I've been told by numerous non-Apple (and/or former-Apple) WebKit
contributors.

~~~
general_failure
Now you know better :)

Also, don't take my word for it, try it out yourself.

------
jgreen10
The web changes all the time and the market catches up. In the early 1990s,
the web was about linked information. Today we have Wikipedia and Google. In
the late 1990s, the web became about ecommerce. Today we have Amazon. In the
early 2000s, the web became about social interaction. Today we have Facebook
and Twitter. In the late 2000s, the web became an app platform (HTML5 + cloud
computing). Today we have Google and Apple. It gets bigger every time.

Maybe the browser and HTTP are less visible nowadays, because they are more
tightly integrated into the UX, but they have never been more important, and
it's still only day one.

~~~
untilHellbanned
couldn't agree more.

------
devx
It's just a cycle. First came the "native" desktop, then came the "web" for
the desktop, and it started replacing most "native" use cases.

Now comes the "native" mobile, and eventually the web on mobile will take
over, too.

~~~
streetcat
Yes or no. Google is pushing the mobile web because it can index/rank web
pages (PageRank work well with web pages and the links between them). It is
much harder to deep link between native apps, hence Google cannot search in-
app content. Without being able to rank in-app pages and even whole apps,
Google cannot make money.

The other key question is access to the device native capabilities from java
script. Google can at max, assure access to android OS API from java script,
but even than the device hardware manf (e.g. Samsung) can create additional
hardware capabilities which can be accessed only by native apps.

So to sum up, the whole "mobile web app" vision can only occur if Google could
rank mobile app pages and show you native apps (or a link to the original web
site) in the search results.

------
cliveowen
The question that popped in my mind reading this is: should apprentice
developers do away with learning web app development and focus on iOS/Android
development? What if new graduates go through hoops learning how to develop
web apps only to find a market that only wants mobile app developers? I'm not
worried much for server side development, that's the same for both types of
apps, but for client-side developers and designers that might actually find
themselves with a very shrinked market 5 years from now.

~~~
integraton
Web traffic, including desktop web traffic, is growing, not shrinking.

A growing share of mobile devices in addition to the growing desktop web
traffic just means more opportunities for everyone.

------
prostoalex
One of the biggest criticisms of Microsoft missing the Web wave was treating
the Internet as the set of protocols with real future belonging to apps.
Microsoft (via Bill Gates' vision described in "The Road Ahead") believed that
"fat clients" were the future. But they shipped a browser for all
miscellaneous Web needs just in case.

It took, ironically, Apple to really bring idea into fruition. Yes, Safari
icon exists and allows you to navigate some of them "sites", but why bother,
when you can have a full-featured fat-client native-app experience with all
bells and whistles.

------
shubb
In enterprise software land, now everyone brings their own device, web
applications are more important than ever.

A company selling SaaS might hope to support HTML, Android, and IOS, but not
Windows Phone / 8 / 8 RT, nor Mozilla Phone, and oh wow, different form
factors for each device.

So if you are a bank, and you want to write an expense program for your field
people, and don't buy a SaaS because politics, you will be writing in in HTML.
This won't change for a decade.

------
api
The PC revolution is also on the skids in a more general sense -- feudal
models of security, centralization of networks, etc.

There are many reasons for this, but one that sticks out to me as relating
directly to this particular article is usability and to a related and lesser
extent design.

Usability and design rule the market.

This is why Linux on the desktop is basically dead outside of a few
enthusiasts and pilot projects, and why the PC is dying in favor of
(feudalized) mobile platforms. These platforms, while less free and open,
offer a vastly superior user interaction experience.

The paramount importance of usability and design is something that open source
and open platform geeks have never grasped because they're the sorts of people
who don't mind being confronted with a "# " prompt and don't mind fiddling
with computers to get them to work. It's like asking car racing and tuning
enthusiasts to design a car for the general public. They'd be likely to
include all kinds of nerd knobs and weird features (that's the NOX knob, yo!)
that would confuse or endanger the average driver.

------
unono
Yes.

Mobile apps offer a superior experience. Reading on mobile is better
(e-readers) and that was the main thing that pushed the web forward. Apps are
also superior, not just the speed/polish, web will get that too, but because
of the limited screen space, apps are forced to become more utilitarian, and
hence better for the user.

Here's a talk explaining this
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjE_Or4VIlU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjE_Or4VIlU)

Mobile, expecially tablets, bring back many of the superior experiences, like
books, 90s style cd-rom apps, physical newspapers, that the browser pushed
aside for many people. 'Long form' longer attention span activities will
predominate.

The losers in this - aggregators such as search engines (google - replaced by
wikipedia app etc.) and private social networks (facebook - replaced by peer
to peer mobile apps)

the winners - creators - writers, artists, productiviy software developers,
and game developers

A new type of app - hybrid between book-documentary-game-todolist, will become
particularly important (a gamification of work).

------
ChrisAntaki
In time, mobile devices will reach the heights of current desktop computers.
While held back by the batteries, it seems inevitable to me that in 3-5 years,
the performance difference between the web & native mobile won't be
distinguishable (except for games!). After that (or before), it seems natural
that a popular or up an coming OS will open up its native APIs to web sites,
if the user wishes to. It might be Firefox OS, and Ubuntu OS. Whichever OS
does it, will receive a huge market share boost. That's my vision.

~~~
kybernetyk
> it seems inevitable to me that in 3-5 years, the performance difference
> between the web & native mobile won't be distinguishable

If native stood still that would be true. The thing is that non-native is
always a few layers above native. If non native gets fast native gets faster.
If non native becomes energy efficient native becomes even more energy
efficient. etc.

~~~
DougWebb
That's true, but as both get faster the difference between them becomes less
and less significant. The layers between non-native and native impose a
relatively fixed amount of overhead, which uses a smaller and smaller
percentage of overall performance as devices get faster. that's why virtual
machines, for both full environments and for the runtime layer of high level
languages, are so commonplace now while a decade ago they were a serious
disadvantage compared to non-vm approaches.

------
ThomPete
The consumer web might be dying, but the b2b web isn't.

We are a far cry from me being able to properly program or design anything
without at least a laptop size computer.

~~~
cageface
Exactly. B2B also happens to be where most of the money is in software
development, unless you can manage to hit a home run in the consumer space.

------
Terretta
It's not dying. It's just getting up from the desk and walking around.

~~~
smaili
Interesting way of looking at it :)

------
moron4hire
I'm beginning to think that smartphones have as much to do with the general
computing paradigm created by PCs as PCs had to do with the general video
consumption paradigm created by TVs. Yes, there is overlap, but it is not the
ideal platform and the new platform does things that are unique to it. I know
a lot of people who replaced their TV and DVD players with a computer, but I
know a lot more that only replaced their _cable TV service_ but still pump the
media out to their TV.

I think we're still figuring out what the hell smartphones are good for. When
the Web first came out, it was personal websites versus TV shows. We now
understand those two things to he independent, if not complimentary, things.

The TV is for large scale consumption, the PC is for large scale content
creation, the smartphone is for large scale content aggregation. These can be
seamlessly complimentary tasks, if we can get them out of the hands of
vertical corporate structures who are only interested in using the concept to
build ubiquitous brand exposure over value.

------
Supermighty
I feel like I need to do something about this. I see the marginalization of
small sites and niche sites (self hosted empires) and the growth of large
massively huge systems like facebook. The web is becoming a tool of
multinational corporations and less a community of people. This makes me
really sad and I don't know what to do. I feel like I need to something.

------
pheo
I think this article was very Very enlightening about what is going on with
the "Web" at large. It's refreshing to see some numbers backing up what is
going on. I work as an amateurish FOSS developer and a network engineer by
day. These numbers tell me something i already knew: the desktop is now longer
the primary way to browse the web. I have a smarty-phone and occasionally use
it to look things up, but the "normal" web on mobile is atrocious. Looks like
the days of ads and pop-ups filling the margins of pages might be coming to an
end. Maybe we can start catering to the users looking for information instead
of trying to work everyone over for advertising revenue.

My site browses on mobile just fine, and it's fully un-optimized wordpress.

------
foozy
I honestly don't see the difference, if you consider it from the the consumer
point of view. The web is alive and thriving, the only thing that has changed
is a smaller screen size and touch screen interaction. Weather its a screen on
a desk or held in your hand is irrelevant.

------
hatu
I guess a better title would be "Is the web browser dying". It seems to me
like the web is transforming away from the browser into standalone
applications that use the underlying architecture. Sure it's still HTTP
requests going back and forth from the Facebook app but it is different from
the old way of building a website.

I don't think any major service has launched in a long time without a
dedicated app for iPhone and Android as their main product, the browser
experience is just too clunky on mobile.

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jiggy2011
It would be interesting to see statistics on desktop vs mobile in terms of
actual hours used. It's probably to be expected that mobile devices will
outsell PCs as they tend to be cheaper and people get a "free" smartphone
every couple of years as part of their plan anyway.

OTOH I spend 8+ hours a day in front of a PC generally and significantly less
time browsing on a phone unless I am in transit or something.

------
charlysisto
Cinema didn't kill theater, TV didn't kill cinema, the web didn't kill tv & so
on. Some parts are overlapping, some respond to different needs. I think
instead of asking, "is this & that dying" why not ask what space is occupying
over the other, how's it different, how is it the same. The discussion is to
broad as is and leads easily to religious arguments

------
michaelwww
If you can show declines in internet usage, number of connections and number
of installed web servers then I'd yes, the web is in decline. I also don't see
how native vs. html5 on mobile has anything do with the argument. On another
topic, I note that I'm consistently disappointed by articles on medium.com

~~~
rictic
The internet is not the web. Many native apps use the internet, precious few
use the web.

Quick litmus test: if a system does not have URLs, or the content at those
URLs is not usable by multiple independently developed user agents based on
open standards, then the system in question is not the web.

~~~
michaelwww
Aren't native apps just specialized web browsers with the url encapsulated in
the settings and not visible? I'm not aware of a shift away from HTTP to some
other private protocol. If the billions of smart devices coming online aren't
universal web browsers does it matter? The growth of public facing hyper text
documents may be in decline, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. The internet
is evolving towards more specialization.

~~~
rictic
In the same way that a lion is kinda like a horse. Serving private apis out
over HTTP is an implementation detail for a native app. If it becomes
convenient, they could switch to a different protocol for their RPCs without
anyone noticing. That's not the web in any reasonable sense of the world.

Without links, it's just not the web. Archive.org can't preserve it, search
engines can't search it, you can't reference it effectively in a bug tracker
or a blog post or a hacker news thread, or a footnote in an essay, etc.

~~~
michaelwww
The things you list would seem to be severe disadvantages. I doubt many would
go this route exclusively but have a traditional site in parallel. I guess
Google and other search engines will let us know when the number of pages
turned up by indexing starts to decline or let us know when general web
browser installation starts to fall. I don't see it happening.

------
blackysky
Last time I checked you still need a data plan to download and load your
favorite apps music videos emails etc... Is The web changing? The answer is
yes. Is the web Dying. The answer is a vibrant no. We are more connected than
never. It is an interesting era for software developers with creativity....

------
pjmlp
No it is not dying.

The web is much more than browsers, which should never have been more than a
way to display documents online.

It is everything than can be reached by network protocols, IP, TCP, UDP,
HTTP(S), SMTP, IM, Jabber, you name it.

~~~
craftsman
The web refers to HTTP and HTML. When you say web, and especially when you
refer to IP, TCP, UDP, SMTP, etc, I think you more accurately refer to the
_internet_.

~~~
pjmlp
Some of us already referred to the internet as web, before mosaic came to
life.

~~~
craftsman
You may be right, though I was around then and don't remember anyone referring
to it as the web (information superhighway does come to mind though; ugh). In
any case, as used in the post (and colloquial usage), I'd still stand by my
comment.

------
ChuckMcM
Of course not (in the dying sense). It is a common mistake to conflate
'change' with 'expiration.' The network experiences are changing, we're not
quite in the 'post web' era but I can see where we will be here in the not too
distant future.

The phrase "you can't go back home" captures this notion of change. Leonard
Nimoy used it on a talk he gave about Star Trek (which was before the first
film :-) Things change, moments in time are lost forever. Programmers are
often acutely aware of this when they try to re-create a product from a few
years ago and its impossible to get all of the pieces back to a consistent
state from the origin time of creation.

------
bluedino
Chrome at over 40% marketshare? Everything else I've read puts it around the
same level as FireFox, both browsers somewhere between 17 and 25% depending on
the source.

~~~
dingaling
> Chrome at over 40% marketshare?

43% of web _traffic_ , apparently, though I haven't yet tracked-down the exact
source of this story:

[http://www.economist.com/news/business/21583288-what-
googles...](http://www.economist.com/news/business/21583288-what-googles-
browser-has-common-queen-victoria-chrome-rules-web)

------
oscargrouch
This looks like the law of the eternal-return of nietzsche. welcomw back to
the nineties, only its 2013 and "computers" are smaller.. back to te future..

------
bmmayer1
No.

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cldr
Once again Betteridge's law proves true.

------
tpainton
Case in point..I am viewing this forum using hackbot android app. I prefer
this emensly to the browser.

------
dfragnito
Do URL's matter? If they do then the web is not dying.

------
bhim
no it is not...the new technology and platform is opening the new way for the
web

------
egfx
ENYO

