Or we could just recognize that for the general population, "cookies" are any client storage by a website, and for technical people, cookies are a subset of options for client storage by a website.
The public never needs to know the technical distinction because it is both
1) Arbitrary: "cookie" could just as well have been a general term for client storage, and
2) Insignificant: Virtually nothing the public is concerned about hinges on specifically how client data is stored, except for lawyers trying to get around cookie laws or to deceive through the text and UI of cookie consent pop-ups.
> We shouldn't make the problem worse by giving them false information.
So what I'm saying is that it's not a problem. It's very easy and accurate enough to tell users that they have to allow cookies in order to use some webpages offline. They can make all of the informed political decisions and personal decisions they need to make. I'd be happy to even further complicate the situation by referring to localstorage as the type of cookie that you'd need to make a lot of pages work offline.
edit: I mean, you can save your cookie in localstorage. For me, that makes it a superset, and the name "local storage" makes it clear that it's storing things where you are. If the public weren't calling all client storage cookies, I'd recommend that they start calling all client storage localstorage.
> Insignificant: Virtually nothing the public is concerned about hinges on specifically how client data is stored, except for lawyers trying to get around cookie laws or to deceive through the text and UI of cookie consent pop-ups.
IMO, your exception is what makes the distinction significant. Defining a cookie two different ways gives companies a powerful new tool for purposefully misleading and manipulating end users.
Yes, many users are already confused. But if we actually make it acceptable to define cookies more broadly (but only when it's convenient for those in power), we're going to make the situation much worse.
Right, if anything, we should campaign for the technical definition of "Cookies" to encompass everything as well and just call the old thing legacy HTTP cookies or whatever when you need to be specific.
The public never needs to know the technical distinction because it is both
1) Arbitrary: "cookie" could just as well have been a general term for client storage, and
2) Insignificant: Virtually nothing the public is concerned about hinges on specifically how client data is stored, except for lawyers trying to get around cookie laws or to deceive through the text and UI of cookie consent pop-ups.
> We shouldn't make the problem worse by giving them false information.
So what I'm saying is that it's not a problem. It's very easy and accurate enough to tell users that they have to allow cookies in order to use some webpages offline. They can make all of the informed political decisions and personal decisions they need to make. I'd be happy to even further complicate the situation by referring to localstorage as the type of cookie that you'd need to make a lot of pages work offline.
edit: I mean, you can save your cookie in localstorage. For me, that makes it a superset, and the name "local storage" makes it clear that it's storing things where you are. If the public weren't calling all client storage cookies, I'd recommend that they start calling all client storage localstorage.