[magicalhippo]

WebUSB was actually useful to me not long ago. I installed Home Assistant and its ESPHome[1] companion, and ESPHome had support for using WebUSB to upload the firmware to a blank ESP8266 I had. I didn't have to install or set up anything on my Windows machine, and the whole process was very quick and convenient.

It seems clear to me that the main issue here is that a lot of programs aren't closely tied to the hardware or the OS. Building them to be so is an annoyance for both users and developers. As Scott McNealy said, you don't need to know how to operate a nuclear power plant to turn on the lights, and most users just want to get stuff done.

That we have three major operating systems still going relatively strong is evidence that there are differences that matters to people. But for a lot of applications those differences don't. The WebXYZ stuff thus increases usability a lot by simultaneously solving the cross-platform compatibility issues and distribution.

In my ESPHome example above literally opened the website, plugged in the USB cable to my device, clicked a button on the web page and the job was done.

So while I don't really like that the same web browser is used to surf other web sites, given that these WebXYZ components present additional security risks and fingerprinting opportunities, I can't deny that they're useful.

[1]: https://esphome.io/guides/getting_started_hassio.html

[awhitty]

I had a similar pleasant experience with a Wooting 60HE keyboard I purchased recently. Updated my keyboard’s firmware and settings right in Chrome! So much nicer than downloading icky gaming peripheral software. I’ve been told a lot of that stuff is borderline spyware.

Excited to try it out with some ESPHome projects too now.