Web Technology – A look at some web failures and the future contenders
It’s been easy to see the visual changes that have occurred on the web over the last few decades, but what’s happened behind the scenes? I’m going to look at a few web technologies that have failed, and some emerging technologies that could revolutionise the internet.
Past and current web failures
Adobe Flash
Flash gained popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s as a tool to add multimedia, interactivity and animation to the web in a way that was very easy for non-developers to learn. Because of this it was hugely popular with homebrew game creators, who could easily release games online, as well as indie animators that would benefit from Flash’s simple UI to create animations. I expect many who grew up in the early noughties, like myself, will remember playing Flash games on Newgrounds and Miniclip, and watching Salad Fingers in IT class instead of learning about boring Excel functions!
The beginning of the demise began with the release of the iPhone in 2007, which wouldn’t support Flash because of security vulnerabilities, power usage and poor support with touch devices. The release of the latest HTML standards in 2008 replaced some of Flash’s functionality with support for video and audio in browsers, and in 2015 Mozilla blocked Flash in Firefox because of serious security concerns. By this time Flash was already seeing a huge loss in usage and the official discontinuation was announced for the end of 2020.
I had very little professional experience with Flash. The first site I ever built over ten years ago had a Flash carousel, and a few years later I was tasked with creating some animated ads in Flash. Even then it felt extremely outdated. In Flash’s defence, there hasn’t been a replacement for creating browser games and interactive experiences that’s easy for non-developers to use. Three.js is a modern solution for creating similar experiences, and I love seeing the creativity that comes out of it. Unlike Flash, however, it has a high learning curve and is intended for experienced javascript developers.
If you’d like to experience a flash from the past, check out the Web Design Museum’s repository of Flash websites. Some of them actually still work well with the use of emulators, and there’s some cool Y2K design inspiration to be gained that seems to be coming back in fashion.
Web3
Flash will at least be remembered for its high point, whereas Web3 has never really taken off. The idea was an extension of the blockchain technology that was popularised by cryptocurrencies. The blockchain is a kind of database – blocks of data chained together, which is stored across multiple networks. This is called decentralisation – a buzzword you’ve probably heard a lot over the last few years. Decentralisation was intended to be one of the main benefits of Web3, as it removed reliance on large organisations like Amazon for hosting, and can avoid government regulations and censorship.
Why has Web3 failed to revolutionise the internet? There are several downsides to Web3, such as the complexity of introducing this new technology for both programmers and users, scalability issues and security risks, amongst other problems. Ultimately, I think the benefits are serving a far too niche market to have an impact on the foundations of the internet.
AMP
AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, was a Google project introduced in 2015. It was a framework that intended to significantly reduce page loading times, improve mobile user experience, enhance SEO and increase engagement. It would allow a website to create optimised copies of webpages which would be stored on Google’s servers, which could be pre-rendered and cached to improve page speed. Google search favoured AMP sites, displaying AMP enabled pages at the top of searches in the ‘Top Stories’ section.
In reality performance didn’t improve in many cases, with alternative performance enhancements usually being more beneficial over AMP. It restricted javascript that could be run, limiting third-party ads and analytics that could be implemented. Google search stopped favouring AMP pages in 2021, and many major news publishers started moving away from the framework, including Washington Post, Vox Media and Buzzfeed. AMP still exists, but with little benefits I wouldn’t be surprised to see it join the evergrowing list of projects that Google has killed off.
What’s in store for the future?
AI
As a big fan of sci-fi I hate using the “AI” terminology to describe the large language models (LLMs) that have been emerging over the last few years. Although I am glad I’m not dealing with HAL9000 yet! ChatGPT, Copilot, and the countless other new LLMs are certainly artificial, but are lacking in the intelligence department. Don’t get me wrong, these are brilliant tools, especially when it comes to repetitive and monotonous tasks, but they inherently lack the ability to create new ideas and thoughts.
AI website builders have emerged, such as WIX, Jimdo, CodeWP and Framer. These tools seem to do an okay job at first glance, if you’re willing to put the time into perfecting the results. Where they really lack is in adding complex functionality and the ability to give recommendations based on experience. They’re yes-men who won’t consider the implications of certain actions and lack the experience to recommend more productive means to achieve your goals. There’s lots of minutiae that likely won’t be considered also, such as accessibility, performance and SEO standards.
I use Codeium, a useful assistant to help generate and autocomplete code. I’m sure it’s saved me tonnes of time, but it’s far from perfect, with occasional inaccuracies and bugs. This is where the lack of intelligence can be potentially disastrous, as without a knowledgeable human checking the output, site breaking bugs could end up in production.
Until true AI exists, I think the current generation of “AI” will remain useful tools to speed up workflow, but won’t replace the creativity, knowledge, and experience of humans.
Quantum computing
This one is a truly radical concept, one I’m definitely not clever enough to understand or explain completely. It’s still in the very early stages of being a reality, but it’s something many tech giants like IBM, Google, and Microsoft are working on. Traditional computing uses binary – 1s and 0s – to store data in “bits”, whereas quantum computers use “qubits”, which can be both 1s and 0s simultaneously, allowing them to perform multiple calculations at the same time.
Quantum computing could see huge improvements in online security with quantum cryptology, as well as solving complex optimisation issues with efficient data routing. I don’t think this technology will replace traditional computing, but instead compliment them by handling the highly complex tasks they’re very good at doing. It’s an interesting concept and I’m interested to see what comes of it.
What else?
There are a few other, more minor web technologies I’m keeping my eye on:
- WebAssembly is a new set of browser standards that allows browsers to run applications written in non-standard front end languages. You could have a javascript backend with Node.js and a Python application running on the frontend with WebAssembly! Figma, our favourite UI design tool, is even using WebAssembly.
- HTMX is a javascript library that adds additional interactivity to web pages. It essentially adds some of React-like reactivity without the huge overhead and the need to write lots of javascript.
- Web components is a new way of creating small, reusable components that contain their own HTML, CSS and javascript. These can be reused anywhere within an application, or even added to a third party application.
New web technologies will come and go, but the basics won’t be replaced for the foreseeable future: HTML, CSS and JS will continue as the foundations of the web.