Betting on the Web

I’m more proud of these 128 kilobytes than anything I’ve built since | by Mike Hall | Jul, 2025 | Medium

I don’t normally link to articles on Medium—I respect you too much—and I do wish this were written on Mike Hall’s own site, but this is just too good not to share.

And don’t dismiss this as a nostalgiac case study from the past:

At no point did the constraints make the product feel compromised. Users on modern devices got a smooth experience and instant feedback, while those on older devices got fast, reliable functionality. Users on feature phones got the same core experience without the bells and whistles.

The constraints forced us to solve problems in ways we wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Without those constraints, we could have just thrown bytes at the problem, but with them every feature had to justify itself. Core functionality had to work everywhere, and without JavaScript crutches proper markup became essential.

This experience changed how I approach design problems. Constraints aren’t a straitjacket, keeping us from doing our best work; they are the foundation that makes innovation possible. When you have to work within severe limitations, you find elegant solutions that scale beyond those limitations.

Apple on course to break all Web Apps in EU within 20 days - Open Web Advocacy

I don’t like to assume the worst and assign vindictitive motives to people, but what Apple is doing here is hard to read as anything other than petulant and nasty …and really, really bad for users.

If you’ve ever made a progressive web app, please fill in this survey.

Web developers: remarkably untalented and careless? – Baldur Bjarnason

I’d like to suggest that everybody in web dev point their dysfunctional novelty seeking (of which I suffer as well) in the direction of HTML and CSS. See how much can be done without JavaScript. It’s a lot! Then look at writing more lightweight JavaScript that’s layered on top of the HTML as enhancements. Because it’s an enhancement and not required for functionality, you can cut the line higher and use newer tech without worry.

See how refreshing that feels.

Introducing Enhance Music — Begin Blog

I also think the number of situations in which an SPA architecture can be recommended is dwindling, chiefly due to how good the web platform has become (and how much better it’s getting every day). And because so much of the rest of the ‘struggle stack’ (transpilers, unique dialects, etc.) was built to get around gaps in the web platform that no longer exist, the use cases for these tools is dwindling in tandem.

This is good news: not only can we avoid piling up transient knowledge about a seemingly endless stream of dependencies, we can also eject from the routine stress of those dependencies changing or breaking under our feet and throwing wrenches into our workflows — all while delivering more robust and performant websites to end users.

The Performance Inequality Gap, 2023 - Infrequently Noted

It is not an exaggeration to say that modern frontend is so enamoured by post-scarcity fairy tales that it is mortgaging the web’s future for another round of night drinking at the JavaScript party.

Strong—and true—words from Alex.

This isn’t working for users or for businesses that hire developers hopped up Facebook’s latest JavaScript hopium. A correction is due.

I concur.

Frontend’s failure to deliver in today’s mostly-mobile, mostly-Android world is shocking, if only for the durability of the myths that sustain the indefensible. We can’t keep doing this.

If you disagree, I encourage you to dive into the data that Alex shares.