# 30 Gotchas: Why MidTerm is a Silly Idea Nobody Asked For

The cold, brutal truth. Every objection a skeptical dev will throw at this project.

No rebuttals here. Just the pain.

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## "You Reinvented X" (1-8)

### 1. "Congrats, you invented tmux"
tmux has been doing session persistence since 2007. Screen since 1987. Both work. Both are free. Both don't require running a web server. You just... `tmux attach`. What exactly does MidTerm add besides a browser tax?

### 2. "SSH + tmux already does everything you're describing"
Start tmux on your server. SSH in from anywhere. Detach. Reattach. Done. This has been the workflow for 30 years. You're adding HTTP as a middleman for... aesthetics?

### 3. "Mosh already solves the connection drop problem"
Mosh uses UDP, handles roaming, survives network switches, and was designed specifically for unreliable connections. It's battle-tested. Your WebSocket reconnection logic is cute, but Mosh actually solved this at the protocol level.

### 4. "This is just ttyd with a pretty face"
ttyd is 2MB, single binary, shares a terminal over HTTP. Sound familiar? It's been around since 2016. You added a sidebar and called it a product.

### 5. "Wetty exists. So does gotty. So does shellinabox."
This space is littered with web terminal projects. Most are abandoned. What makes you think MidTerm won't join the graveyard in 18 months?

### 6. "VS Code Remote Development does this 100x better"
Full IDE. File explorer. Extensions. Debugging. Integrated terminal. And Microsoft maintains it. Your browser terminal is a Fisher-Price toy in comparison.

### 7. "JetBrains Gateway already solved remote development"
Professional IDE, remote execution, proper tooling. Anyone who cares about productivity already uses this. Web terminals are for people who haven't discovered real tools yet.

### 8. "Eternal Terminal (et) handles reconnection better"
et was specifically designed for session persistence across IP changes and network switches. It's SSH-compatible. No new ports, no HTTP server, no password to remember.

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## "Just Use Cloud Service X" (9-14)

### 9. "GitHub Codespaces gives you a full dev environment in the browser"
For free (limited hours) or cheap. With VS Code. With your dotfiles. With prebuilds. With GitHub integration. Why would anyone self-host a terminal when Codespaces exists?

### 10. "Gitpod does this and more"
Full workspace, Docker-based, ephemeral environments, GitLab/GitHub/Bitbucket integration. Your "terminal in a browser" is step 1 of 50 that Gitpod already completed.

### 11. "Google Cloud Shell is literally free"
5GB persistent storage, Debian VM, web terminal, accessible from any browser. Zero setup. Why would I run my own server when Google gives me one for free?

### 12. "$5/month DigitalOcean droplet + tmux = same thing"
Except it's in a datacenter with real uptime, not dependent on my home internet or laptop staying awake. And I can actually SSH to it from anywhere without HTTP gymnastics.

### 13. "Replit gives you a terminal, IDE, hosting, and deployment"
For free. In the browser. With collaboration. With AI. You're bringing a knife to a gunfight.

### 14. "AWS Cloud9 exists and it's backed by Amazon"
Full IDE, terminal, Lambda integration, collaboration. Enterprise support. Your side project vs. AWS infrastructure. Hmm.

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## Security Nightmares (15-20)

### 15. "You're exposing a terminal over HTTP and calling it 'secure'?"
PBKDF2 doesn't matter if someone's sniffing unencrypted traffic. "Just use HTTPS" - cool, so now users need to set up SSL certs too? You've just added ops work to access a terminal.

### 16. "Password-only auth in 2024? No 2FA? No SSO?"
One password. Anyone who gets it has full terminal access. No audit log. No session management. No way to revoke access per-device. This is amateur hour.

### 17. "Rate limiting doesn't stop credential stuffing at scale"
5 attempts, 30 second lockout? Botnets will just slow-roll it. Or hit it from different IPs. You're not stopping anyone determined.

### 18. "Single shared password = zero accountability"
If something goes wrong, who did it? Was it you from your phone? Your laptop? Someone who shoulder-surfed your password at a coffee shop? No way to know.

### 19. "Why would I trust a random binary with shell access to my machine?"
You're asking me to download an executable and give it permission to spawn shells. What's in that binary? You've audited it, but have I? Supply chain security is real.

### 20. "'Works with Tailscale' just means you've added another dependency"
Now I need MidTerm AND Tailscale AND still have to manage credentials. That's not simplifying anything, that's stack sprawl.

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## Technical Skepticism (21-25)

### 21. "WebSockets are objectively less reliable than SSH"
SSH is a 30-year-old protocol designed for remote shell access. WebSockets are a hack on top of HTTP designed for chat apps. You're using the wrong tool for the job.

### 22. "When your server crashes, sessions are gone. Zero persistence."
tmux on a real server survives reboots with tmux-resurrect. MidTerm process dies? Start over. That's not session persistence, that's session amnesia.

### 23. "Binary protocol with no public spec = lock-in"
What happens when you abandon this project? Nobody can maintain it because the protocol isn't documented. At least SSH has RFCs.

### 24. "'Native AOT' is a fancy way of saying 'can't debug in production'"
JIT gives you runtime introspection. AOT gives you a black box. Good luck figuring out why it's hanging in production.

### 25. "15MB for a terminal wrapper is obscene"
ttyd is 2MB. Your bloat is showing. What's in those extra 13MB? React? Electron? (Please don't say it's Electron.)

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## "This Solves Nothing" (26-30)

### 26. "Who actually needs to check terminals from their phone?"
Be honest: this is a solution looking for a problem. If your CI takes 3 hours, fix your CI. If your AI agent needs constant babysitting, the AI isn't ready for production use.

### 27. "If you can't wait for a task to finish, your workflow is broken"
Async processes exist. Webhooks exist. Slack notifications exist. Real solutions don't require you to manually watch a terminal.

### 28. "Just use proper automation instead of babysitting builds"
CI/CD pipelines. GitHub Actions. Notifications on failure. The answer to "I can't leave my desk because builds are running" is not "access the build from my phone" — it's "stop manually watching builds."

### 29. "The AI agent use case is a stretch"
Claude Code and Aider are cool, but if they need constant human intervention, they're not actually autonomous agents. You're just doing AI-assisted coding with extra steps. And that doesn't need a web terminal.

### 30. "This will be abandoned in 2 years like every other 'terminal in browser' project"
Where's gotty now? Wetty? shellinabox? They all had their moment. The terminal-in-browser space is where passion projects go to die. What makes you different?

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## The Uncomfortable Summary

MidTerm exists in a space where:
- **tmux + SSH** already works for persistence
- **Mosh** already works for unreliable connections
- **VS Code Remote** already works for development
- **Cloud shells** are free and require zero setup
- **Proper CI/CD** eliminates the need to watch terminals

The honest question: **Is MidTerm solving a real problem, or is it a cool technical project that scratches an itch nobody else has?**

The HackerNews commenters will be brutal. The Reddit thread will have 3 upvotes and 47 comments explaining why tmux is better. The ProductHunt launch will get polite claps from people who will never install it.

That's the reality. Now prove them wrong.
