I think this misses the point. React Native is not a replacement for the web in any meaningful sense. I think React Native can be a really useful platform to develop on, but it was developed precisely because iPhone and Android made it so difficult to build robust mobile applications with web technologies. The proliferation of apps that you have to download just to use it "once in a lifetime", as you say, is a consequence of trying to convert what can be done just as well on a free and open web into an isolated application. The web has plenty of problems - every open, standardized system does, and aging ones tend to have far more problems. But abandoning the web would be a complete disaster. I'm glad to see better options for building apps than what exists today. I think being able to use JavaScript to build the client side of native applications can be a tremendous boost to productivity, and I think native applications have and will always have their place. I love electron and I applaud the efforts of the React Native team for making otherwise unnecessarily isolated proprietary development platforms easier to integrate with and more accessible. But rooting for the end of the web is like rooting for the downfall of a free and democratic society - I'm pretty sure it's not something any of us actually want.
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that React Native is a replacement for the web.
I meant that React Native can become a replacement for the parts of the web (or just html, the web is bigger) that try to be an application inside what is essentially a document viewer.
I think the web (or rather html) is wonderful for what it was intended for - document viewing and editing (sometimes collaboratively).
Blogs, newspapers, Q&A sites and anything built around content really, should definitely still be in built using html/web , but the various SaaS products should be built using a tool built for apps.
> [React] was developed precisely because iPhone and Android made it so difficult to build robust mobile applications with web technologies
Exactly. Therefore, in my opinion, Facebook should instead try to get the web back on track of being the application delivery standard. If this is not possible (google/apple not cooperating), they should imho give ReactNative an API that is compatible with the web. Of course, they can build their virtual dom etcetera on top of that (but it should be optional).
React Native is here to help us build apps today with performance in mind. Leveraging web won't have similar performance because it will always have a layer (browser). And it will take who-knows-how-long to implement whatever API that's available on native but not in browsers. React Native allows accessing native API today.
And as far as I know, FB actually tries hard to improve web by participating TC 39 actively. Web is still big part of them.
