Memes

I'm just going to say that, as someone who has dealt with technology for over 30 years, and has worked in, on, and with the internet for probably ~20 years, there has never been a time where every webpage ever, has worked in any one browser. IE6 was close, but that was mainly because it was either the only option, or at least the only one people knew about. There were still blowhard sites that only worked in Netscape navigator, or whatever.... but the opposite was true as well, some things worked in IE that would refuse to function in Netscape/FF/opera.

Even during the supposed golden era of the past maybe ~3 years, just shortly prior to the app superiority complex of post 2020 internet, there were still sites that required IE. There were also sites that refused to function on IE.... I've had issues getting very normal webpages to even load on any browser, but then I fire up Firefox and it works perfectly and instantly. Yet, FF has its own incompatibilities.

So the initial premise of the joke is, for all intents and purposes, invalid. There has never been a time that you could pick literally any browser, and have access to everything that's on the internet.... nevermind that being true for every browser.

It's true that all mainstream sites worked in every browser, but that was always true.... sites like that make a point of making themselves available regardless of what bad decisions you make over what browser to use. Those sites come to you, in that way (so to speak). Some sites demand you go to them, which is to say that you must operate their site in the way they want you to.

The app-ocalypse is just the latest in a long trend of getting you to meet them on their terms.