Deurbanising the Web [pdf]
*  PDFs are self-contained and offlineable<p>HTML can easily be offline-able. Base64 your images or use SVG, put your CSS in the HTML page, remove all 2-way data interaction, basically reduce HTML to the same performance as PDF and allow it to be downloaded.<p>* PDFs are files<p>HTML is files<p>* PDFs are decentralised<p>This should be "PDFs can be decentralised". PDFs aren't inherently any more decentralised than any other kind of file, including HTML.<p>The store is the thing that becomes decentralised, not the content.<p>* PDFs are page-oriented<p>HTML can be page-oriented. Simply build your website with pagination. PDFs can also be abused to have hugely long pages. Bad UX can be encapsulated in any medium.<p>* PDFs used to be large (bla bla bla Javascript weighs a lot)<p>Nope, PDFs are still objectively larger than the equivalent HTML. PDFs don't have any dynamic interaction, rip all that out and produce the HTML of yesteryear and your HTML will be tiny in comparison to the PDF.<p>Edit: I'm sorry, the more I think about this the dumber I feel. The web is useful because it's 2-way. I am excited by the web because I can interact with other people. I come to hacker news to engage with thinkers, not to just read a published article from one single author. I want to read ad-hoc opinions and user submitted content. PDF web, really?