zlacker

>>robbie+(OP)
The web went in the wrong direction when we abandoned the initial concepts of user agents, which was that the browser has the ultimate choice of what to render and how. That concept, transferred to today's world of apps would simply mean that any client like Apollo is essentially a browser locked on Reddit's website, parsing HTML (which has the role of an API) and rendering the content in a native interface. As long as the user can access the HTML for free, they should be able to use any application (a browser or a special app) and render the content however they wish.

Unfortunately with today's SPA apps we don't even get the HTML directly, but with the recent resurgence of server-side rendering we may soon be able to get rendered HTML with one HTTP request. And then the only hurdles will be legal.

>>danije+KI
> Unfortunately with today's SPA apps we don't even get the HTML directly

It works the other way: with today's SPAs the API (that powers the frontend) is exposed for us to use directly, without going through the HTML - just use your browser's devtools to inspect the network/fetch/XHR requests and build your own client.

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On an related-but-unrelated note: I don't know why so many website companies aren't allowing users to pay to use their own client: it's win-win-win: the service operator gets new revenue to make-up for the lack of ads in third-party clients, it doesn't cost the operator anything (because their web-services and APIs are already going to be well-documented, right?), and makes the user/consumer-base happy because they can use a specialized client.

Where would Twitter be today if we could continue to use Tweetbot and other clients with our own single-user API-key or so?

>>DaiPlu+TU
> I don't know why so many website companies aren't allowing users to pay to use their own client...

If you do that, I'm going to make a client that uses a rotating set of accounts and masquerades as a different client. I am then going to make content available through my client for free, and I'm going to put ads on it so that I can make money. With some small number of accounts, I will serve perhaps x1000 users and you can't do anything about it.

In time, perhaps I will lock the users into my platform. They will talk about how the community on Reddit doesn't understand Reneit and how all the memes come from Reneit. If I win, I'll be Reddit over Digg. If I lose I'll be Imgur.

So go ahead. You'll be Invision to Tapatalk and you will die.