Why you should build for the web
I have been developing software for five years now. I mainly develop for the web but dabble in cross-platform app dev here and there. While growing as a developer, I have found that the web is probably the freest platform.
One of the reasons for my thinking is that the web is ubiquitous. You can access it on any device that can connect to the internet and has a web browser. Moreover, web apps have controlled access to most native features today. So web apps are indeed cross-platform.
A decade ago, most of the software we used was native. Today, most people only need one native app to do most or all of their work, i.e. the web browser. If you see, today, there are really powerful web apps out there. WebAssembly combined with PWA tech is making accessing software easy and convenient. Even the software that was traditionally native now has slightly toned-down versions available as web apps.
Notion web app. Source: https://www.notion.so/help/notion-for-web
Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms are examples of excellent software built for the web. MATLAB has also been available on the browser for a while now. So has AutoCAD. Figma started as web-only, and even now, their desktop app is an Electron wrapper around their web app. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest — all have powerful web apps. Even the tool with which this post was drafted, Notion, is a web-first app. Evernote is a web app. Jira, Confluence, Asana, Trello are all web apps. Todoist is a web app. Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare are all web first offerings. Netflix doesn’t have a desktop app either. Their primary offering for desktop is their web app. Microsoft has made Office available on the web through Office 365. A lot of services and products are web-only, if not web first. GitHub has been web first since its inception.
Google Sheets. Source: https://www.google.com/sheets/about/
If you are a startup or small business intending to offer a software product, web apps are the most convenient option. Web apps require the least amount of resources and cost for development. They are also really convenient for your users to access anywhere anytime as long as they have a device that can connect to the internet. In some cases, they are also available offline. There is plenty of software built on the web that has been very successful. Yours can be too.
The other reason for my claim is that as a web app, your software is independent. It doesn’t have to rely on app marketplaces regulated by mega tech oligopolies. You don’t have to rely on them for distribution. You don’t have to build your software according to their standards. You don’t have to integrate their payment solutions into your software and give them a significant cut of your profits. You are not bound to do things their way.
Even if you are okay with doing all of that, there’s no guarantee that these mega tech corps will play nice. There have been several instances of developer accounts getting suspended without any proper explanation whatsoever. If your account gets suspended, you aren’t allowed to make new accounts to distribute your software. That would hurt startups and small businesses. Once the mega tech corp decides that they don’t want to distribute your app, you can’t do anything. Suspending software because of ethical and legal violations is necessary, but that is not what always happens. Most of the times, no clear explanation is given.
Web, however, is free of such regulations. Only regulators are government authorities, not multi-trillion-dollar tech corps. Moreover, developing and deploying web apps is very cheap and quick, lowering the entry barrier. If a beginner/student wants to distribute some software they created, it would be very costly to publish a native app. Not everyone is fortunate to be financially stable to do that. However, publishing a web app can even be done for free.
The freedom that the web gives us as software developers and users is truly powerful. But we would do well to remember that with great power comes great responsibility. Cheers.
