I mean, the hypertext web has been mostly replaced by a web of interactive applications. They even removed support for ftp:// URLs!
In particular, in this context, the browser went from being a user-agent for browsing hypertext (a regular application, if one a bit 3270-like as Pike points out in the talk) to being mainly an execution environment for third-party software. That is, it became "the things that connect programs together". Most new software is developed for this platform, and it's a platform that barely existed in a recognizable form at the time he wrote the talk.
Comments
I mean, the hypertext web has been mostly replaced by a web of interactive applications. They even removed support for ftp:// URLs!
In particular, in this context, the browser went from being a user-agent for browsing hypertext (a regular application, if one a bit 3270-like as Pike points out in the talk) to being mainly an execution environment for third-party software. That is, it became "the things that connect programs together". Most new software is developed for this platform, and it's a platform that barely existed in a recognizable form at the time he wrote the talk.