Interesting developments, especially for those who
are running preview builds of Win10.

https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/...ge-windows-10/

"Beginning with EdgeHTML 17.17063, we have enabled Service Workers and push
notifications by default in preview builds of Microsoft Edge"

A PWA is a "progressive web app". Microsoft are outlining
a view that webpages need to be made as functional as,
and eventually replace, local, compiled software. It's the
vision of computers as interactive cable TV subscribed
to commercial services on what used to be the information
superhighway. Software will be webpages leaking out into
the local system, running independently, able to "re-engage"
you as necessary to "optimize monetization".

The linked article describes the basics, albeit in flowery
marketing terms.

Service workers: Scripts running locally, independent
of webpages.

Push: Websites able to send notifications when neither
their page, nor even a browser, is running.

Local cache: Storage of files that might be needed,
so that apps can run offline.

This is not just Microsoft's vision. There are w3c specs.
Firefox has push functionality being set up, and there are
already pref settings for it.
(services.push.enabled and dom.webnotifications.enabled,
introduced with FF 44.)

But what Microsoft are doing is to bring it all to Edge
and integrate it with Windows and the Windows Store,
making it enabled by default in Edge. Edge becomes the
interface for apps/services. (Another attempted end-run
around competing browsers. Like ActiveX in IE, linking
Edge/Windows/Windows Store means the functionality
will probably be more advanced in Edge than in other
browsers. Edge *is* Windows Store PWAs.)

It's both ingenious and scary, further blurring the line
between your computer/your property and the world of
commercial services. The tone of this and related articles
makes it sound like software was a temporary anomaly
and that online services are what computers are meant
to do.
And of course, Microsoft are promising spyware options
and the ability to "monetize" apps, to anyone who sets
up a PWA in their store. (In the latest example of Microsoft's
tasteless butchering of the English language, they describe
the approval of PWAs for the store as their "ingesting" of
web apps. Example: "We'll look for a Service Worker as a
signal for ingesting PWAs.")

That is, people who set up webpage apps and go through
the Windows Store will be able to get telemetry data to
sell or use for targetted ads. And Microsoft will be the
middleman to the whole shebang.

Of course all of this could fail. People may not accept
push any more than they did when the idea first came out.
But articles like this might also be descriptions of the
future. And a radically different future it is. And anyone
using the latest Win10 gets to try it all out, or work on
blocking it, depending on personal preference.