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Comment by jolux | Hacker News Reader

I think Figma is a good example of a product that spells trouble for Apple's Mac platform strategy. It is the exact kind of app you would have expected to be Mac-first or Mac-exclusive (like Sketch!) just ten years ago or so (highly visual, with a primary audience of designers, who historically have used Macs).

But with WebAssembly and other advancements in web technology, the performance of Figma can rival and even exceed that of native apps, and it beats the pants off Sketch for collaboration and cross-platform compatibility. Figma is just a better product, and that's in large part due to being web-native. You cannot make a Mac app to compete with it without putting enormous resources towards all of the things it gets for free by being on the web.

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Figma is terrible for users. If they change their business model or get acqui-hired, I lose access to the app and all my documents.

With a real app on my computer, I can continue to use my documents indefinitely. Even if the app developer goes out of business and it can no longer run in the latest version of macOS, I can set up a VM or keep an old computer or boot disk around to run it.

That will never be the case for apps running on someone else’s server.

These base practicalities are why, no matter how good the user experience of Figma, I can never rely on it for anything important or long-term.

Local first behavior is a big reason I still use Sketch. Nobody can take my documents from me, no matter what.

Sketch is also generally more friendly to people trying to take their Sketch documents elsewhere — the Sketch file format is publicly documented, which has allowed several other apps (including Figma) to be able to read it. Figma has yet to do the same for its format, which reeks of lock-in and rubs me the wrong way.

You can save Figma files as regular files on your desktop. My app Flinto includes a Sketch import and Figma import feature. I get your point, but just pointing out its not as locked down as you might have assumed.

The difference is that all existing Sketch files are guaranteed to match the file format specification that has been published, whereas Figma could change their file format entirely without telling anyone and suddenly nothing but Figma can read files exported from it until third party devs reverse engineer the new format (which isn’t a given).

Figma would earn a lot of goodwill if they published their specification and assured users and devs in its ecosystem that the format won’t change out from under them. Even then though, they could very easily say one thing and then do another. It’s an unavoidable uncertainty that comes with web apps.

You just like the current business model of Sketch better, it had nothing to do with it being native. They could have required online license checks from the beginning like so so much b2b software does.

I have the same discomfort as you but I would suspect most users would be prepared to make this tradeoff. Most people need to get a job done and dusted using the best tools. The archival concern feels a little too nerdy/fogeyish to me. Not broad enough to be "terrible for users", rather "terrible for nerds who value archival for vague posterity reasons".

Who archives besides a few wonks reading HN? UX is one step above sketching on a napkin, it's not the final project.

>The archival concern feels a little too nerdy/fogeyish to me.

Is that really a nerd issue or is it a business continuity issue? Would a professional designer or consultant ever want to rely on something like this, let alone a large business with many employees?

I felt goofy about using Google Docs early on too, felt totally wrong but collaboration is so important. Is Google Docs "ready for professionals"? "Good enough" eventually wins in these situations.

I probably have older files on Google Docs than documents on my computer -- Local archival isn't inherently safer. "When Google goes out of business.." used to be a reasonable thing to say, a while ago.

>"When Google goes out of business.."

Losing access to the account is bigger concern. You need backups, wherever you store your important files. I wish Google made it easier to make incremental backups of Google Drive.

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