The content you create should not be tied to the tool you use to create it. Software applications should, whenever possible, push for freeing their data, and make it available for other applications to use as well, without vendor lock-in.
In the current context of browser-first apps, we are far from this ideal, since most of our data now resides in a cloud database, locked behind a web interface. Is there any hope for breaking free of this pattern? There might be, with the newly introduced File System Access API, which lets the browser read and write files on disk. We see it as an opportunity to come full circle: offer the convenience, availability, and collaborative aspects of a browser-first app, all while keeping the data free from the tool, unlocking its full potential.
In this talk, we will discuss practical use of this API specifically for text-centric applications, some of the challenges related to synchronization in a browser-cloud-file setup, and how to address them using CRDTs.
