Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a website instead of an app isn't signaling some particularly strong computer literacy. Not that it matters - the web, both mobile and general, has been neutered so much over the years that webpages are just as useless, locked down experience siloes as apps; really the main difference in practice is the icon experience and how unobtrusive surveillance is :).
> Using a website instead of an app isn't signaling some particularly strong computer literacy. I am not claiming it is. But it is different from what some people got introduced to. That's enough already to strike fear. But what do you mean with websites have been neutered? Didn't HTML, CSS, and JS only got more capabilities over time?
They did, but almost all of them are just there so serve developers, to enable them to build even more sophisticated interactive billboards. The web serves marketing and advertising. So do apps, but the web does it better in many ways.
What I meant by websites being neutered, is along the dimension of empowering users. Webapps as tools that provide functionality and play well with others. Composability, interoperability, end-user authonomy. Those are anathema to modern web.
And as I said, apps ain't better. It's really "pick your poison", whether you want to be fighting with your browser sandbox, or with your OS sandbox - and half of the things you need sit on the server-side anyway, out of your reach.