I am trying to figure this out. The writer despairingly says a backend is needed to store changes in state. The writer calls this backend DB and API. The writer then substitutes DB and API with "server" like it is a solution

So now we have a webapp. The webapp connects to a backend. The webapp stores changes in the backend. The webapp loads changes in the backend.

The original problem still persists?! State can be stored in browser with localstorage. Or in device with file access. That is about it. Across devices, you need online storage and access key.

I feel like this was a writeup on the problem with vanilla HTML app development.

Also, can we all agree that calling a webpage an app is an afront to all webpages? We should have two categories: webpages and webapps. A web page can contain a webapp. A web app is anything where the content changes and where it connects to a backend to store or load data. So interactive html stuff is not a webapp, but JS literally changing the data makes it a webapp, even a simple HTML page with a JS clock makes that portion of the page a webapp.