Platform · 2017–now · Platform Wars
WebAssembly
Portable bytecode beyond the browser. Slow burn with real teeth in edge and plugin runtimes.
WASM stuck as a compile target for performance-critical modules without surrendering the web platform. It will not replace JavaScript for UI glue. Edge, gaming, and plugin sandboxes keep adoption incremental and real.
Context
Frameworks fought for the runtime
Front-end frameworks consolidated power; TypeScript became table stakes; Next and friends absorbed routing, data, and deploy gravity. Serverless and Jamstack rebranded old ideas with better CDNs, then cooled when auth and personalization refused to stay static. Blockchain-for-CRUD and big-bang rewrites collected dumb budgets. The winners were boring platforms with ecosystems — React gravity, Rust where systems care, Vite for greenfield bundling. The losers were narratives that skipped product-market fit or treated every App Router rewrite as destiny.
Compare with
Related
Language · 2015–now
Rust
Memory safety without GC pauses. Climbing from systems niches into cloud infra and WASM.
Language · 1995–now
JavaScript
The only language that runs in every browser. Accidental monopoly turned deliberate platform.
Framework · 2013–now
Electron
Chromium in a trench coat. Slack, VS Code, and RAM usage everywhere you look.