The Web isn’t the Internet

I picked this up from Daring Fireball re Marc Andreessen: Let’s say we all grew up in tech world where we only used tablets and smartphones. Then one day, someone comes up to you with a 27-inch display hooked up to a notebook. You could have everything you have on your tablets and smartphones, and … Continue reading “The Web isn’t the Internet”

I picked this up from Daring Fireball re Marc Andreessen:

Let’s say we all grew up in tech world where we only used tablets and smartphones. Then one day, someone comes up to you with a 27-inch display hooked up to a notebook. You could have everything you have on your tablets and smartphones, and then some. Except you don’t have to download anything or update it. Everything is the latest and greatest, and just one click away. If you are a software developer, there are no gatekeepers telling you if your latest creation is approved, or when you can add the latest flourish.

See, this is a problem because what you’re talking about there is not the Web, but native software. If you don’t need to download anything then you don’t need an Internet connection. And a web browser without an Internet connection is possibly the dumbest app ever. So, the ‘don’t have to download anything’ bit isn’t really the truth. It’s a carefully edited version of the truth.

And it illustrates the disingenuous thought here. Andreessen, via Copeland, is describing the status quo before the App Stores, before we had broadband. We had software on our desktop devices that we never updated. We never needed to.

This isn’t about the web versus native, it’s not even about mobile versus portable versus desktop; this is politics. Andreessen likes the web more than he likes native. And it’s a shame because (as I tweeted this morning), I can’t think of a single web app that isn’t bettered by going native.

Some apps are, like the browser, useless without an internet connection. Some multiplayer games, some particularly gruesome DRM, half of the Adobe collection and apparently the next Xbox. But they all use the Internet.

The web isn’t even the Internet. The web is post-1993. Even I was on the Internet before then. And if we restrict the web to being HTML and browsers, then we’re doing everyone a disservice.

Are desktops going away? No. I really don’t think so. Not until the things we create on desktop (like apps) are 100% possible on mobile platforms. Could this happen? Yes. Will it happen? I’m not so sure. I think desktops are here to stay. I think that the laptop might be dead, but that’s a different debate.

Leave a Reply