You know the WWW and the internet aren't the same thing right?
The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing. The Internet—the underlying network connecting computers globally—was developed earlier (starting in the late 1960s with ARPANET). Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which is an application running on top of the Internet that allows us to view web pages, media, and navigate via hyperlinks.
What if I told you that apps are just thinly disguised and highly specialized web browsers, designed to work with only one particular website?
All the work behind the scenes is just http requests to webservers, just the same as using reddit or twitter on a browser.
So, no, it's not true that 85% of people engaging with reddit or twitter aren't using the www in any way. 100% of people engaging with twitter or reddit are definitely using the WWW.
This is not true of how apps for reddit or Twitter work: they interface with an API, not an http webserver.
This is why reddits API policy changes broke all the third party apps, same for Twitter/X third party apps. Its also how X was able to shut down Xcancel by denying it API access.
Anyway, they are far removed from working anything remotely like "a thinly veiled web browser"
He’s sort of right since most apps (and I assume the Reddit app as well) are written with web technology but that doesn’t make them a browser since it’s all executed locally except the API calls
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u/ITworksGuys 6h ago
You know the WWW and the internet aren't the same thing right?