I don't think I am confused, no. The Internet in your pocket with a touch UI is a different thing. I tried to argue about this in a neighbouring branch.

You’re mistaking the web for the internet. It doesn’t detract from your points but your insistence risks confusing others.

It’s still pure Internet. It’s just no longer pure “web.”

The internet‘s UI is your OS’s networking library. Although it has changed with the advent of mobile (e.g. can we transparently handle switching between WiFi / cellular?) it has no GUI, touch or otherwise.

What you are trying to say is that companies have had to adapt to the possibility that web applications in a web browser will lose out to native applications using web or Internet protocols behind the scenes.

I think the change (web vs. mobile) is more about the following: mobile devices are more personal and well, more mobile. As such, they provide stronger authentication mechanisms. They are typically managed environments, and finally, there are more people with mobile devices than with personal computers in the world. All of the above are truly game changers when you look at certain application domains such as mobile banking.

Here's one out of thousands of scenarios that are possible only on mobile: I am in London, I need some cash money but my bank accounts are in euros. The sequence is this: Face ID, then with a few taps I convert the necessary amount and withdraw pounds from the nearest ATM. With Revolut I saved a lot of time and money on conversion alone (though to be fair many other mobile banks do the same today).

This is not just "pure Internet" it's a different medium that brings a lot of new possibilities.

I’m staggered that this is some scenario that isn’t possible before apps like Revolut.

While I did pay an interchange fee I could do this with my USD account numerous times in the past 20 years.

So is it just that you avoided slightly higher interchange fees?

It's that I could do it while in front of the ATM when I needed it, and that there are no interchange fees. Revolut and a few others use the same average price for conversion both ways.

The internet changed, but it's still here. The sentence:

> The predictions of the time assumed that Internet was there forever.

...seems to indicate you feel the internet has somehow gone somewhere.

I think he meant www. Apps/phones are closed ecosystems that are in the middle between cable TV run by megacorps and the www of the early 00s with some tail of indy aps and remaining independent websites