by ecib

With Instant Articles, Facebook has not only done a 180 from what Mark Zuckerberg has called the company’s biggest mistake, they’ve now done another lap just to prove a point. Not only is the web not fast enough for apps, it’s not fast enough for text either.

And you know what, they’re right.

A lot of the pain points that come up in this article ring true. I feel like the mobile web has actually regressed in the past couple years. Maybe I am imagining this but I feel like I encounter far more popups and full page adds that are reminiscent of the worst of the 90's web than I ever have on mobile web pages. Complete with impossibly minuscule touch targets to 'x' out of them.

But the native vs. open debate goes far beyond these egregious examples when companies are reacting to user behavior that favors native even in cases of mostly text content.

I've always preferred web properties that are very spartan. Seems to be increasingly lethal to be anything but in many cases.