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by toddmorey·3y ago·view on hn ↗
I think web tech (even as resource hungry as it tends to be) is the right abstraction until your product & team is big enough to properly staff and develop for each platform. Looking at you, Slack. It's time to step up to native.

I look at it this way: Any app deploying to four platforms (web, Mac, Linux, Windows) is going to involve some level of non-native abstraction. (Whatever Adobe seems doing for their UI kit is equally terrible if not worse.)

Also: Websites are indeed software in 2023. I realized the other day that my favorite design app is Figma, and I NEVER thought I'd say that about a non-native app.

I think the optimization here is to have browsers themselves make the "desktop mode" experience much better, removing the need for Electron style projects. You shouldn't have to re-bundle the entire browser to get to it. You shouldn't have to pay $250/mo to have a reasonable installer. There should just be an install for desktop button on the web app. I believe Safari is headed this direction in the upcoming Mac OS release.

2 comments
Agreed that this is on the browser makers. Not sure how the incentives align if the desktop version is actully an offline experience. Advertising and tracking might be compromised?
Tauri does exactly that — uses the bundled browser instead of packaging a new one.