This plus moxie's comment (currently top) really sum it up nicely. Unless I get on the order of $500 or more for it a month, I won't stop seeing something as a side project or hobby. I certainly don't want the support responsibilities that come along with paid products.
Knowing that you've solved an unsolved problem in some niche, putting it out there, and seeing others voluntarily use it is far more gratifying than whatever small sum of income such a scheme might net you. This applies even more when those others start helping contributing back.
To everyone saying that this has been tried and failed with Java Applets / Silverlight / Flash: what those technologies did was try to shoehorn app-like environments into the browser, which of course annoyed users because it broke all kinds of expectations when compared to visiting regular HTML pages.
What I (and I think, the OP) have in mind is an actual 2nd "browser". A different standalone app. I envision something where "webapp" authors can post manifests at URL endpoints which define the UI and behavior (not unlike styling in Android), and this 2nd browser will "render" the webapp using native widgets and controls. This brings with it a number of things:
- OMG! The basic keyboard shortcuts all my other native apps have are now available, instead of some poorly hacked-together javascript-detected version
- Rich user interaction with the app and the controls is now a first-class citizen - no more weird highlighting of the entire page, or unexpected popping-up and disappearing of elements on misclicks
- Right click can actually be used, without hacks!
- Opening a new "window" with a new app actually creates an OS-level window with the icon and name being the webapp's favicon - furthering the notion that you're actually using an app and not visiting a website.
- It still retains the main advantages of the web - it's cross-platform and ubiquitous (and users don't have to go through the hassle of explicitly installing and updating native apps)
- I'm sure developing highly interactive webapps for this platform would be a lot simpler, more fundamentally sound, and more enjoyable than the huge hack that is HTML5/AJAX now
- etc etc
It would really surprise me if nobody has thought through this idea in more detail than me, or if there isn't someone out there working on something like this already...
I've been trying to think what is the root cause of this sad state of affairs on Windows. Attacking the scammers is not going to work since obviously their scams are profitable (and legal enough to get away with...)
Is it (the lack of) education among users? I find it curious that when compared to financial products, where improving financial education is often brought up as a solution, there's a lot less mention of education when it comes to cases like these. Sadly this kind of "don't fall for these scams" computing education is not very transferrable to more productive uses of computing.
In a free market, if users stop falling for this crap (admittedly a tall order on Windows) then the scammers will naturally go out of business.
Really nice domain name too! So many sites have .it, .io, etc domain names where the TLD doesn't mean anything at all and it's glaringly obvious it's just cause they couldn't get the .com. In this case it works very nicely.
A big thing for me are the Macbook trackpads (and the standalone magic trackpads). They're just so awesome to use and no other manufacturer's comes close to Apple's.
In the last year I've gotten practically addicted to my Magic Trackpad. I've been using gestures on my MBP for a few years, but when I got the trackpad for my iMac at work last year and stated using it full time... wow.
If I want to play a game, I'll use a mouse. Same with drawing (or I'd get a tablet). But my my daily work of programming, surfing, email, etc the trackpad works great.
But the thing that has me addicted are the gestures. Three finger swipe left or right to go forward/back in Safari, IntelliJ, Mail, and every where else. Four fingers up to trigger Expose to show all my windows. Expand all fingers to show the desktop. Pinch-to-zoom is one I don't use much, but when you want to look at a larger version of a screenshot on a web page it comes in handy.
It seems like such a little thing, but I'm lost without the back/forward gestures. They are second nature to me now, and when I use someone else's computer I'm constantly frustrated by not being able to do it.
I'm sure there are gestures in other OSes at this point. Two-finger scrolling was an instant hit with me. After trying it, the PC laptop solution (special scroll areas on the trackpad) just seemed so pathetic. Two finger right-click was great. I'm still consistently surprised to see relatively new PCs with small trackpads. My boss has a 17" Alienware he bought last year, and it has a much smaller trackpad than the 5" pad on my 15" MBP.
The problem this is trying to solve is an annoying one - so much so that I just wrote something similar a couple of weeks ago: https://github.com/suan/quick-debug
One reason is that many distros are very slow to update the versions of these packages. It's much easier to get up-to-date packages from language-specific package managers.
