The Web in the Mobile-First Era
How the web evolved from 1989 to 2020 and where it's heading next
Slide contents
1. The Web in the Mobile-First Era
How the web evolved from 1989 to 2020 and where it's heading next
2. What We'll Cover
From statistics to web developer prospects
Context: ecosystems and mobile first
Web/mobile timeline: 1989 → 2020
Web developer prospects and frontend trends
Fintech practice: web, PWA, cross-platform
3. 01. Context
The digital ecosystem development org
4. What's Under the Hood
What our digital ecosystem org runs
Public web of the flagship sites
Mobile banking app
Data platform + acquisition automation
Special projects + shared infrastructure
5. 02. Today
Internet and mobile user statistics
6. More than half the web is a phone
4.57B — People online — Digital 2020, We Are Social
5.16B — Unique mobile users — about two thirds of the population
52% — Web traffic from mobile — desktop 45.3%, tablet 2.7%
7. If It Fails on a Phone, It Fails
Mobile-first design + performance
Phone-first design, or it fails
Performance budget > visuals
Touch first + 3G/offline resilience
Bundle size — the main frontend KPI
8. 03. Timeline 1989 → 2020
30+ years of web and mobile evolution
9. Birth of the Web
WWW + JS
1989 — WWW concept
1990–1991 — HTTP/URI/HTML
1993–1994 — Mosaic, Netscape, W3C
1995–1998 — JS, browser wars, CSS2/PHP
10. Web 2.0 and Mobile
AJAX, jQuery, iPhone, Android
2000 — Windows Mobile
2004 — Web 2.0 and AJAX Gmail
2005–2006 — Rails, Maps, jQuery
2007–2009 — iPhone, Android, Chrome
11. Acceleration
SPA, hybrid, React Native, PWA
2010 — AngularJS, Backbone, SPAs
2011 — Apache Cordova, Windows Phone
2013 — React, micro-frontends emerging
2015–2019 — RN, ES2015, PWA, Flutter
12. The Web Has Caught Up with Native
Mature web + mobile + cross-platform
React, Vue, Angular — SPA standards
Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit — SSR meta-frameworks
PWA/RN/Flutter — near-native
WebAssembly, edge, serverless go mainstream
13. 04. Web Developer Prospects
What's in demand right now
14. One stack, four platforms
What the web wins over native development
A browser exists on every platform
No app stores and no review
Updates reach users instantly
A lower barrier to entry than native
15. 05. Examples from Practice
What we do at a large fintech
16. Four ways to build for mobile
By full functionality and by complexity
PWA — web plus a manifest
Hybrid — native shell around a WebView
Cross-platform — write once, run anywhere
Native — write twice, everything available
17. Start an idea on the web
Then follow whatever the idea proves
Testing an idea — web and PWA
Need the stores — a native shell
The idea took off — native development
Avoid writing twice — React Native or Flutter
18. The web moves fast, but entry is still cheap
The pace of change is very high
Starting on the web is simple and fun
One stack, almost every platform
More constraints than native
start on the web, then follow the evidence
19. AI first is replacing mobile first
Mobile development is commoditizing
AI first — Facebook and Google, 2016
How does a web developer get there?
TensorFlow.js — in the browser and in Node.js
20. 06. Useful Resources
Where to go next
21. References and Materials
Mobile-first, standards, PWA, frontend
Digital 2020 + web.dev
MDN — the web standards reference
State of JS/CSS — annual surveys
Frontend channels and podcasts
22. Thank you!
polomodov.tech
All slides and links — in the Telegram channel
Alexander Polomodov, Technical Director & Fellow, T-Technologies
@book_cube