| The arguable reason the web exploded in the first place were the architectural principles behind it were intentionally constrained to enable 50+ year sustainability and recombination for apps built within its architecture. This isn't so much about plain-jane HTML pages (useful as they are, since they have a simple interaction model than many understand and enjoy). It's more about using and exposing data in a visible manner (known formats and semantics) and hyperlinks rather than a single page app with opaque data. This gives you network effects. Think about the minor uproar over hash-bang URLs around 5 years ago, Twitter being the primary offender. That was single page application oriented rather than hyperlink orientation. There is a reason they've moved away from that. In the 90s, Google or Yahoo was just something students did with the links that were out there - that eventually generated hundreds of billions in value because of network effects and visbility of the information in HTML (Ie. They could apply algorithms to it like PageRank). The point of the web architecture is that it enables serendipity. Most anyone who has had massive success in business will explain the role of luck, serendipity, and network effects in their rise. Designing a web app for today's paycheck by closing it off behind a WebSocket+ JavaScript mess eliminates a proven avenue for network effects. Sometimes that might be OK, but it's unnecessarily limiting for many kinds of ventures. |