[DotJs2025] Love/Hate: Upgrading to Web2.5 with Local-First
The web’s saga brims with schisms—web versus native, TypeScript versus vanilla—each spawning silos where synergy beckons. Kyle Simpson, a human-centric technologist and getify’s architect, bridged these chasms at dotJS 2025, advocating “Web2.5”: a local-first ethos reclaiming autonomy from cloud colossi. Acclaimed for “You Don’t Know JS” and a million course views, Kyle chronicled divides’ deceit, positing device-centric data as the salve for privacy’s plight and ownership’s erosion.
Kyle’s parable evoked binaries’ burden: HTML/CSS zealots scorning JS behemoths, frontend sentinels eyeing backend warily. False forks abound—privacy or ease? Security or swiftness? Ownership or SaaS servitude? Web2’s vendor vassalage—Apple/Google hoarding silos—exacts tribute: data’s ransom, identity’s lease. Local-first inverts: custody on-device, apps as data weavers, CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data types) syncing sans servers. Kyle’s trinity: user sovereign identity (DID—decentralized identifiers), data dominion (P2P meshes like IPFS), app perpetuity (long-now principle: timeless access).
Ink & Switch’s manifesto inspired: seven tenets—privacy by design, gradual sync, offline primacy—Kyle adapted for Web2.5. ElectricSQL’s Postgres mirror, Triplit’s reactive stores—tools transmuting apps into autonomous agents. No zero-sum: convenience persists via selective shares, resilience through federated backups. Kyle’s mea culpa: complicit in Web2’s centralization, now atonement via getify’s culture forge, championing minimalism’s maxim.
This ascent demands audacity: query complicity in data’s despoliation, erect bridges via local-first. Web2.5 beckons—a participatory paradigm where users, not platforms, preside.
Divides’ Deception and Bridges’ Blueprint
Kyle cataloged rifts: frameworks’ feuds, stacks’ schisms—each zero-sum sophistry. Local-first liberates: DIDs for self-sovereign selves, CRDTs for seamless merges, eschewing extractive empires. Ink & Switch’s axioms—user control, smooth sync—Kyle reframed for web’s wilderness.
Pillars of Possession
Autonomy’s arch: device-held data, P2P propagation—ElectricSQL’s replicas, Triplit’s reactivity. Longevity’s lore: apps eternal, subscriptions supplanted. Kyle’s query: perpetuate Web2’s plunder or pioneer Web2.5’s plenty?