| I think the world in which the browser disappears and all we have is apps is a worse world than the one we have now. With HTML/CSS we get the relatively easy ability to add extensions to dig deep into the data of a page. One of my favorite extensions is rikaikun which adds popup translation of Japanese words. It can only do this because it can inspect a standardized data structure (the DOM) with standardized APIs. I also love the ad blockers. They let me not only block ads but also hide parts of websites I find distracting. For example I hide the "Hot posts from other stack exchange sites" section of stack overflow because I find I get sucked into 20-40-60 minute distractions if I don't hide it. I can also copy and paste nearly any content and link to almost any content. An a world of native apps none of this is really possible. Every native app will use its own internal representations of data. Different UI kits or libraries. Much of it is un-linkable, un-copyable, It drives me nuts when I can't copy and paste of phone number, or address in a native app. I don't believe getting rid of the web for a WASI based app world would be a good thing for users. PS: I think WASI is a great idea. I just think trying to replace HTML based apps with WebAssembly apps using WASI and rendering with WebGPU is the wrong direction for most web apps. |