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by _jal 2291 days ago
Because it cost like $10 and 5 minutes, could be set up by non-web-plumbers, and was pretty out of the box.
2 comments

Aside: this is one of the biggest lessons of my adult life. Just because I could make something doesn't mean I should make something. Learning to value your time is a very underdeveloped skill.
But...but.. something.. something Stallman...vendor lock-in...closed-platforms bad...something.
If it is a sarcasm, then please mind that original comment author got really humped by this app's vendor when it stopped working. Maybe Stallman got something right after all?
It didn't stop working. It just doesn't get updated anymore.
In Stallman thinking though, he doesn't have the freedom to fix or update it himself.

(I don't think Stallman's ideas are necessarily right for everybody, but I'm glad he's doing his thing right out in his end of the bell curve to counteract the opposite end of the software philosophy craziness...)

Under Stallmans model the developer works for free, and I guess they need a second job to pay the rent. Ah but GPL doesn’t mean free as in beer? Oh yes for practical purposes it does mean exactly that. Outlier business models excepted of course!
I really don't understand, is sounds too ignorant and almost arrogant.

Web browser doesn't need to be set up, it is already included with iPad (or any Android device, or any laptop or desktop, or your smart TV, smart fridge or smart watch).

You need to configure your app during first launch pointing it to your data source, and maybe entering login and password. It is exactly the same amount of hussle compared to opening web site and make it default homepage of your browser.

I don't even want to talk about money, it's totally irrelevant, $10 or $0.

The hard/technical part isn't launching the browser. It's about building a continuously updating status page for that browser to display.