
The application paradigm is unsustainable - miguelrochefort
https://medium.com/@miguelrochefort/the-application-paradigm-is-unsustainable-4071f392d2af
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jaclaz
This is a pet peeve of mine.

We were told that with HTML5 it would have been soon possible to use a browser
to do almost anything (BTW 90% or maybe 95% of which was already doable
before) and even the greengrocer around the corner (not really, just an
hyperbole) wants me to install an app (which needs to come into two
flavours/platforms, IOS and Android).

And now we have (just as we had before) an endless number of half-broken sites
(in the sense that there are no two browsers rendering them exactly the same
and the usual patches related to identify a specific browser and serving
slightly different content are still everywhere) and ON TOP of that an endless
number of very "vertical" or "strictly branded" apps.

~~~
miguelrochefort
My post used the term "application", but I could have written the same thing
using the term "website" instead.

I don't think using 1,000 different websites is more sustainable than using
1,000 different applications. The same problems I listed apply in both cases.

We need to completely dissociate the client/interface from the service
provider.

~~~
jaclaz
That may be a further step, but right now the difference (which I see as huge)
is that a link/bookmark (that can actually be re-discovered in no time - if
not saved - via Search Engine) takes a few bytes of the (precious, limited in
size) storage of my device while the stupid app takes Kilobytes or Megabytes.

Moreover, whilst the site can be found 99.99% of times through a quick search
on a search engine, the installed app cannot (unless I miss something) if you
don't remember how the stupid icon/logo looks like.

In any case I see lots of people swiping pages and pages before - maybe -
finding the stupid app they are looking for.

BTW, it is not an entirely "new" thing, on more traditional desktops each and
every stupid program (actually its installer) will try to convince you to add
an icon/shortcut on the desktop, I have seen desktops with (literally) several
tens of such shortcuts, possibly more, each with a "distinctive" icon.

Android or IOS do the same, but due to the limited size of the screen you can
have at the most - say - 16 or 25 icons per page, you need to swipe to the
next page, visually scan for the icon, miss it, go ahead, go back, etc.

