The promise of the web is universal access to services across OSes and devices without gatekeepers, but like all systems, the web isn't what it promises – it's what it does. And today, the web is increasingly exclusionary. The roots of this exclusion are a mismatch between the reality of the hardware and networks users access our services from versus our expectations of those same devices and networks. The trends that put wind into JavaScript's sails on the client side in the early 2010's have long since stopped blowing. So, what now? This talk digs into the network and device reality we must confront, and why our future as web developers depends on what we do here and now.
This talk has been presented at JSNation 2025, check out the latest edition of this JavaScript Conference.
