> there is not much more
distance to cover [relative to native toolkits]
As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again around 2009 when CSS media queries became mainstream to adapt to mobile usage. For me, the excessive push for browser APIs as a desktop replacement since then, and the proliferation of frameworks is a generational thing, driven not by technology but by big data, SaaS (prospect of extracting recurring revenue from customers, rather than one-time license fees), and a new generation of developers getting into the game by leaving the status quo behind, solely for their own economical benefit. Google has masterfully played this game, and let the idea of open web standards bend the minds of developers who thought they were clever. Moz partnering with them under WHATWG seemed like a good idea at the time, but just made the concept of a web standard arbitrary and "whatever Chrome does" over time, leading to Moz's demise and that of every other "browser vendor".
It'll take some stance and political will to reclaim the web.
The alternative is an internet completely locked down in native apps in proprietary and unaccountable app stores. I'll take a bloated web browser over a corporate monoculture any day.
It's very simple. One requires the good graces of an unaccountable and opaque corporate review process. The other requires nothing more than a simple webserver using open standards hosted anywhere in the world.
Hosted at an IP that can be blocked, over a protocol (HTTP/3, QUIC) so complex and opaque that almost no F/OSS implementation exists, and takes away transparency over regular DNS resolution, that is.
The play around control of DNS infrastructure is an interesting one, and it will be exciting to see how that plays out over the coming decade.
Should a trifecta of corporates control resolution, it would be only natural for alternative roots. Over a certain market penetration threshold this could form a perfect moat. Everything that made AlterNIC and its ilk fail is irrelevant now.
Yes the universal portability argument and fear of closed ecosystems is the carrot to put in front of a generation who experienced MS monoculture and the dangers of app stores not welcoming to GPL and other F/OSS licensing scheme. With the consequence of the web becoming a closed network itself, like AOL and CompuServe which the web was intended to replace. It's a selfish, narrow-minded motive of nerds putting their stuff into the browser using their preferred language and uniform platform/toolchain, without benefit for end-users.
What benefits end users can change very quickly. Take Apple yanking HKMaps as an example. Dictatorships have always had some advantages over messy democracies.
Sorry which is which? Because right now Chrome engine has more control of the web then IE did in it's heyday when Microsoft was ruled to be a monopoly.
Sorry, that's just wrong. Non-IE browsers had less than 5% market share at its peak. Non-Chrome browsers have more than 6 times that (~30%). And web standards are developed much more collaboratively these days, with less unilateral action.
The current situation isn't ideal but I can still build apps and reach users without the permission of any company's review board. There's a big difference between controlling technology and controlling content.
With most people working out of Apple, Microsoft and Google salaries, good luck getting a bunch of random weekend coders to pick up and counterattack an alternative browser based on that open source.
The ungoogled-chromium project [0] presumably doesn't take all that much manpower as it's just taking Chromium and paring it down a little. A true alternative browser codebase like Firefox, with its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine, takes a great deal of effort, of course.
As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again around 2009 when CSS media queries became mainstream to adapt to mobile usage. For me, the excessive push for browser APIs as a desktop replacement since then, and the proliferation of frameworks is a generational thing, driven not by technology but by big data, SaaS (prospect of extracting recurring revenue from customers, rather than one-time license fees), and a new generation of developers getting into the game by leaving the status quo behind, solely for their own economical benefit. Google has masterfully played this game, and let the idea of open web standards bend the minds of developers who thought they were clever. Moz partnering with them under WHATWG seemed like a good idea at the time, but just made the concept of a web standard arbitrary and "whatever Chrome does" over time, leading to Moz's demise and that of every other "browser vendor".
It'll take some stance and political will to reclaim the web.