[wvenable]

> So like Shockwave, or Flash, or Silverlight, or Adobe AIR, or java applets, or the entire ActiveX ecosystem or...

Yeah you complain about JavaScript but listed 6 objectively worse technologies. Clearly the best option won.

Browsers are ultimately the write-once-run-everywhere platform that everyone was trying to develop for decades. The only successful implementation of that idea. This is a case of worse is better.

And I think you're actually overselling the problem -- I have plenty of vintage machines and this text box in HN has more functionality than word processors had in the 90s. Here we are safely using literally an infinite number of apps that never have to be installed. It's an amazing achievement.

[randomdata]

> objectively worse technologies.

The word you are looking for is subjectively. Objective measures need to be specific.

> Clearly the best option won.

Although, if Konquerer had implemented its own Flash renderer back in the day, there is a decent chance that Flash would have won in the end. Flash failed only because there was, for all intents and purposes, only a single implementation and a notable individual didn't want to have to rely on it, breaking unanimous support.

> The only successful implementation of that idea.

SQL is the only successful implementation of that idea.

The browser has fallen quite short of any kind of success in that regard. For example, studies that have looked at iPhone users suggest that 80-90% of their "internet time" is spent in apps rather than the browser.

[wvenable]

> The word you are looking for is subjectively. Objective measures need to be specific.

If you're going to be pedantic, you should at least try and be correct. Objective just means based on facts where subjective is based on opinions or feelings. Just because I didn't enumerate all the ways in which those technologies are objectively terrible, doesn't mean they are not.

> Although, if Konquerer had implemented its own Flash renderer back in the day, there is a decent chance that Flash would have won in the end.

But even if that was the case, we'd still be using JavaScript.

> Flash failed only because there was, for all intents and purposes, only a single implementation

...and that implementation was terrible. Full of security flaws, bugs, and insufficient investment from Adobe. But a single closed-source implementation is also a perfectly good reason why it objectively terrible as well.

> The browser has fallen quite short of any kind of success in that regard.

If Apple was not specifically crippling browser potential on their platforms, it might be more. But either way, the actual success of the iPhone was entirely based on the browser (the first version didn't even have apps). The web is what makes any alternative operating system viable today -- whether that OS is iOS, Mac OS, Android, WebOS, ChromeOS, Linux, etc.

[randomdata]

> Objective just means based on facts where subjective is based on opinions or feelings.

Indeed, and the assertion made was based on opinion or feeling. There is no objectivity in the assertion.

> But a single closed-source implementation is also a perfectly good reason why it objectively terrible as well.

While I must share in your opinion, this again is not measured objectively. You just got finished defining the word... It is quite likely that at least someone at Adobe enjoyed it being a single closed-source implementation for a long, long time. "Terrible" is always an opinion.

> the first version didn't even have apps

Incorrect. While it did not support third-party apps (officially, at least; it didn't take long to see them added unofficially), the device was chock full of apps written by Apple.