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Platforms are competitions, and the web is losing. We can do simple, straightforward things to combat that decline...but contemporary frontend isn't doing those things. Why not? A consolidated thread from last week: infrequently.org/2024/10/platform…

Thanks Alex. The most interesting part of the post was the data on deployed devices and networks, and the calculation for allowable download size. IMO most important (and really only) thing is the work you are doing to even the playing field. Once the web actually can compete on mobile, it will.

React Native and similar are also important ways the “web” is competing today, until it is allowed to compete fully.

I think that's true in the breach but not in the main. If teams imagine their direction of travel is *towards* the web, off of pure native, halfway homes are helpful. But most folks would be better served using iOS webviews and real PWAs everywhere else in those cases.

If teams imagine that they'll hide out in the app store w/ RN until the coast is clear, they've baked stores and incidental dependence on native APIs into their thinking, and that's much harder to dislodge. React, in these cases, seeks to mediate all runtimes in ways that mostly help app stores.

I think you just underestimate the web community by virtue of only seeing the worst parts day after day. The part I live in is extremely dynamic and creative and will use whatever the best tool for the job is. I mean one thing you can’t say about js devs is that they’re reluctant to try $newthing.

I spend a big chunk of my time analyzing the web at large, and I really agree with this. The web is getting faster at a rate we've never seen before. Frameworks are innovating. Browsers are speeding up. Even third party embeds are improving. I don't think performance is causing the time spent gap.