Imagine you have a decent computer in the 1990s: Windows 95, 1 GB RAM, a Pentium processor, and a 10 GB hard drive. You use it for everything—LAN games, word processing, databases, research—all of this entirely offline.
Now imagine it’s 2024. You have a decent laptop: Windows 10, 8 GB of RAM, a Core i5 processor, and 256 GB of storage. It’s used for Netflix, YouTube, online word processing, and graphic design. All in Chrome, all online. In fact, it’s borderline useless without a Wi-Fi connection. Why is this? The computer in 2024 is more capable than the 1990s system; it has 8 times the RAM and is completely faster.
Why does this trend persist? The beloved Encarta encyclopedia was discontinued in 2009, only to be replaced by obscure Wikipedia downloads with Kiwix. Offline clipart made way for Bing pictures, and even spreadsheets and graphic design have moved online.
Computers aren’t merely streaming boxes or gateways to the Internet! They run full desktop OSes! That doesn’t just mean the capability to split screens and windows so you can stream movies and scroll Reddit—your phone can do that! They should aspire to do more!
Don’t get me wrong, I like web applications as an option. They’re a good choice for locked-down phones or computers, people with slow computers, or just as a secondary option. They shouldn’t be the only option, though. Go to most tech sites and search for the best graphic design software, and you’ll see Canva or Adobe Express—two exclusively online options. A computer with 256 GB of free space should easily handle the assets Canva uses and manage image manipulation offline.
The Google suite technically works offline, but it’s extremely limited. Voice typing and stock images don’t work in Google Docs offline. Not to mention the lack of a desktop application means no document security if offline mode is turned on. Why couldn’t Google add offline clipart or file locking to its productivity suite?
Smartphones are even worse! An old episode of *The Computer Chronicles* showed someone using a database application on a computer with 8 MB of RAM! They don’t even make SD cards that size anymore. A mobile phone has at least 8000 times more RAM, yet the top-rated applications are Temu, Instagram, and TikTok—web-based applications. The top games look like they were designed in MS Paint, and the top productivity applications are mostly web-based.
Go to any smartphone review, and you’ll find that the most tested and, unfortunately, most used applications are clients to access specific websites, i.e., Instagram and TikTok. People ran whole databases on 8 MB of RAM while Samsung’s A35 is only ‘good enough’ for Instagram. This is ridiculous. Even non-social applications are web-based—face recognition, information, sports, shopping—all web-based. We should judge devices by what they can do on an airplane. It’s so sad to have the power of a supercomputer in your hand and waste it on the web.
Please make the comments constructive, and vulgarity will not be tolerated!