Even gmail and Google Maps aren’t what they used to be. On a machine that isn’t top of the line, Gmail takes ten+ seconds to load to interactivity, and then going to each email takes five or so seconds. It’s basically unusable.
Re:In Defense of the Modern Web
by reaperducer on Friday May 15, 2020 @11:57AM
(#23193673)
On a machine that isn’t top of the line, Gmail takes ten+ seconds to load to interactivity, and then going to each email takes five or so seconds
For giggles, I just loaded HN on a 2011 MacBook Air. It took just under 2 seconds for the front page.
Then I loaded GMail on the same machine. 15 seconds to the front page. Plus, it came in with 21 errors ranging from invalid headers to invalid sources to cross-origin issues.
The errors are really embarrassing. Come on Google, how hard is it to just not have cross-origin issues?
Web apps are dying because the web isn't a good application platform. Google made a real good argument with Gmail and Maps, but unless you have their resources (even if you do, looking at Facebook here), it's very hard to create a great application experience on the web--for many of the reasons you write about in your post.
But I think that's fine. The web isn't a good application platform, but it is a good information platform. There's also other protocols beyond HTTP. Imagine if getting the most out of the internet didn't require millions of lines of C++, hyper-complicated JS JITs, layer upon layer on HTTP, and opening the door to the surveillance state.