"Different people have different perspectives on how information should be connected, so why do we not allow these range of perspectives to be represented and shared digitally? Why limit ourselves to just one point of view?
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Why re-create code editors, simulators, spreadsheets, and more in the browser when we already have native programs much better suited to these tasks?"
The title is something I contemplated and began to address long ago, only on a personal level.
With respect to the first question, perhaps this goes to the poor mechanism promoted by Google, to rank the www's contents by "popularity".
This mechanism obviously succeeds for purposes of measuring www user opinion and selling advertising (the later not anticipated by the founders in the early years). However it falls short in the non-commercial context, e.g., the academic setting out of which the company grew. Anyone remember "Knol"?
Today Google search (and probably others seeking to emulate its commercial success) intentionally promote a pattern of usage of their cache/database where its users never reach "page 2" of search results. The company has built their ad sales business on the idea that one perspective ("the top search result") should not only prevail but also that, optimally, other results need not even be considered. It should be obvious that in a non-commercial research context, this is not optimal.
If the www is 100% commercial then of course this is not an issue. But "the www" is difficult to define. All httpd's on any accessible network? All httpd's listening on accessible addresses with corresponding ICANN-registered domainnames? All pages crawled by a commercial bot, deposited in a commercial www cache and made accessible to the public? And so on. In any event, if users only view the www's supposed contents through the lense of a commercial entity, the perception of what the www actually comprises may be manipulated in a way that suits commercial interests, e.g. the sale of advertising.
As to the second question, when given the choice I do not use a popular web browser. The author mentions the utility of "native programs". I would prefer the term "dedicated programs". Programs that perform essentially one task, or "do one thing". Whether such programs can perform their dedicated tasks better than an omnibus-styled program that performs many, varied tasks is a question for the user to decide. For example, the author answers that native programs are "better suited" than the web browser.
The "web browser" has become a conglomeration of once dedicated programs.
There are such dedicated programs for making TCP connections over which HTTP commands can be sent and www content retrieved. This is a task that web browsers can perform, although some users may prefer a dedicated program. In this way content retrieval can be separated from content consumption, alleviating many of the www annoyances such as user tracking, manipulation and advertising.