You make points below that are good, but let's be clear. You're talking about simplicity of interop and configuration that's gotten better, rather than simplicity of the software stack. There are so many variables that have changed by adopting the web stack that I don't think any other dimension of simplicity has been achieved.
If we had instead focused networking protocol design on the simplicity of configuration, discovery, and naming, then we'd have been better off. It's not like you need an electron stack, an apache stack, and a cloudy (planet megascale!) datastore for that.
I think the simplicity story is more than that. First, state management is a tricky thing to do in any environment, but in an environment of a billion random variables it’s tedious if not impossible. I’d assert that each of those complexities you highlight are actually solutions to a specific challenge in peer to peer interaction between computers that are simpler in the aggregate than if they didn’t exist and we had just focused on, say, making Bluetooth not be a massive annoyance. The ability to simply ensure a tcp stack is configured then be done with the entire end to end problem of peer to peer collaboration across platforms, devices, stacks, local RF environment, LAN configuration, and it includes durability and available assurances, etc, are enormous.
I also think it’s kinda not true that protocols have stayed stationary in that time. Certainly Bluetooth has improved, there’s lot do innovation on small device adhoc networks, there even a lot of innovation on internet protocols over the last 5 or so years. My observation (having been at Netscape at the time) was the real demise of network and internet protocols until late was the MSFT destruction of Netscape. We were a huge driver of protocol innovation and had demonstrated there’s gold in them thar networks. We hired a lot of protocol and standard developers and built products that implemented as close as our talent allowed to the spec. It was a heady time. Microsoft realized at the time this push really threatened their core business model. They so publicly and roundly pwn’ed us out of existence that it created a massive chill in anything internet tech related (most of us went into e-commerce as a result). It wasn’t until sort of recently Google self servingly started bullying standards out the door that things sort of unwedged again and despite the kind of sad way Google primed the pump, things are really exciting right now on the internet.
I’ll note that our Mozilla play was a really important effort on our part to ensure that culture we had built around open internet standards and technologies could stay afloat into the present. I’ve been happy to watch Gecko and Xul and others grow from their sapling state to where it is now. It also prevented Microsoft from establishing a real hegemony in internet standards. But most of all, I am so happy to see a real C/C++ replacement candidate emerge (Rust) from that effort. It was a real thumb in Microsoft’s eye to one up their $1B free browser anticompetitive play with taking our then worthless IP and establishing a long lived foundation around it.
You make points below that are good, but let's be clear. You're talking about simplicity of interop and configuration that's gotten better, rather than simplicity of the software stack. There are so many variables that have changed by adopting the web stack that I don't think any other dimension of simplicity has been achieved.
If we had instead focused networking protocol design on the simplicity of configuration, discovery, and naming, then we'd have been better off. It's not like you need an electron stack, an apache stack, and a cloudy (planet megascale!) datastore for that.