I think we need BOTH a platform for on-demand apps AND a platform for documents with some dynamic content. That we've tried to put both together into one platform is, I think, part of the problem. I would like to be able to read the news on my phone without the cpu going to 100% and draining my battery. I would also like to be able to do collaborative document editing and video calls without having to install an app that takes up space even even I'm not using it. Today I feel both use cases suffer from running on a platform that tries to handle both.
Exactly. And I don't even think the separation would be hard on a technical level.
I spend a lot of time on websites where I rely on JavaScript (Google Maps, navigating GitHub etc.), but it's always the same handful of sites. Having a "Trust this Website" button to whitelist these places would totally work. Everyone else can serve me static HTML or lose me as a visitor. (I realize that's kind of what NoScript extensions achieve, but they're not a standard with enough momentum.)
For an extension like noscript or ublock, yes, it's hard to draw a line. One site uses one feature set, another site uses a different feature set, and if you draw the line around the union of those feature sets then it's too broad. Ads complicate things even more, because a simpler technology makes it easy to filter them.
I don't think the solution is in trying to draw such a line. I think the solution is to build something that covers 80% of the use cases, AND makes it sublimely easier than the technology we use today, AND is backed by someone with the power to deliver it to users.
There are examples in our history where we rejected a complex technology in favor of a simpler one, so there is some precedence. Remember HTML 3.0?
