[extension]

So you need special case code to handle each and every data type, even when you're just going to flatten it into an opaque blob in every case? And there would be a PDF store, and a Powerpoint store, and a Ruby script store, and an NES emulator saved game store, each with it's own completely independent API?

No, this is ludicrous and backwards, for so many reasons. Obviously you want some sort of generic data interchange layer, and voila: filesystem.

I can imagine a filesystem far more sophisticated than what we have today, with metadata, indexing, content handlers, searching, filtering, and so on. But the essential foundation for all of this is a generic package for user data.

[ThomPete]

The web is fundamentally a bunch of files.

Would you rather browse around the net in hierarchies or use google to find the files.

File systems like those we have today are fine when you don't have a lot of content. But it simply fails as a design system as soon as we move into terabytes of data.

Why do you think that Spotlight and QuickSilver are so popular on the mac?

[extension]

We're not talking about the web, we're talking about the user's stuff. Entirely distinct, for the purposes of usability. Anyway, a good filesystem supports fast search and filter, in addition to folders.

Without files, you have no web and no general search. Instead you have photo-net, music-net, video-net, text-net, all orthogonal. Lame.