Yes and no, but I do like your thinking here. Using more specialized apps is kinda moving the complexity around, but the way the browser standards work also makes the problem way worse.
There are other cross-platform toolkits that are waaaay cheaper to maintain. We are just stuck with the one that Google is using as a “moat” to keep other web platform competitors from cutting into their profits, while pretending to support an open platform. The standard grows so fast that not even Microsoft can stomach the cost of keeping up.
As always, the issue is capitalism. Like, you probably don’t want to politically dictate technical standards, but we also don’t have any democratic method for tech workers to build and implement a sustainable standard. People do try, but they’re usually just trying to compete in the so-called marketplace of ideas and don’t really have a political strategy for building a people’s internet or whatever.
Yes and no, but I do like your thinking here. Using more specialized apps is kinda moving the complexity around, but the way the browser standards work also makes the problem way worse.
There are other cross-platform toolkits that are waaaay cheaper to maintain. We are just stuck with the one that Google is using as a “moat” to keep other web platform competitors from cutting into their profits, while pretending to support an open platform. The standard grows so fast that not even Microsoft can stomach the cost of keeping up.
As always, the issue is capitalism. Like, you probably don’t want to politically dictate technical standards, but we also don’t have any democratic method for tech workers to build and implement a sustainable standard. People do try, but they’re usually just trying to compete in the so-called marketplace of ideas and don’t really have a political strategy for building a people’s internet or whatever.