[asciilifeform]

One of the attractions of Hypercard was that a "stack" (document) was entirely self-contained; and would always behave exactly the same on any machine where HC could run.

Notably, would run without any need for servers (or, worse, the subscription-and-lock-in "services" ubiquitous today -- arguably the 1980s "computer revolution" was strangled in the cradle, and we've gone most of the way back to 1970s-style time-sharing now: how many phone apps etc. will run usefully without a net connection? The "smartphone" is essentially a small "glass TTY", rather than personal computer in the '80s sense.)

I've run HC stacks written 30+ years ago. How many current-day "web app" documents will be readable as-found 30 years from now? For that matter, I've paid for iOS apps that would no longer execute after half a year (on account of Apple's "API changes", or in some cases -- author's "call home" server fell down and did not get up, etc.) Permanence (in the most basic "I paid for this and it ought to be usable for so long as any compatible iron remains functional" sense) is no longer part of the software commercial culture, and one is likely to be laughed at for merely raising the question.

[scroot]

> The "smartphone" is essentially a small "glass TTY", rather than personal computer in the '80s sense.

We now have a generation or two that completely missed this era, and, worse, might be uninterested in the history. The idea that you would have a ubiquitous, portable, always-on personal computing device and that -- at least from the perspective of people who are knowledgeable of about this history -- you would put a Unix on it is completely crazy.

It is, as you say, an expensive and sleek teletype emulator