>>All things that you can do with a Web app.

You can, but they aren't.

>>However, the story is different when you go to a lower level. Amazon, Citibank and United can certainly afford to spend the money to build 3 different kinds of native applications, plus a Web app. But most smaller companies don't have either the know-how or staff to support that.

This is not a force of nature that never can be changed- which is the point! This problem is crying out for a solution. We've known for at least 35 years that a 4GL that works on multiple platforms is a great option. I used one in 1980 and saw FP following the same route 20 years later. I'm told FP had UI issues on Mac and Unix (wouldn't know- I was a MS choirboy at the time) but in 2015 the availability of hybrid technology allows a lowest common denominator but reliable cross platform UI.

I agree this isn't the goal for OS vendors who want to lock in their customers with hot features and bespoke apps, just like Windows in its heyday, so a) why would we expect the OS vendors to cooperate and b) their self interest is good for customers if it drives hot new features and constant innovation to improve user experience.

If web apps could reliably gather up new tech such as Hound and (a HUGE one) if mobile connectivity ever reaches the point where you can be sure not to encounter a dead spot or outage, I have nothing against web apps. But it's not the direction the OS vendors are going. For example, in future Android OS itself will hook up apps to provide a lot of the sort of featureset that traditionally needs a browser. IMHO it's conceivable that Android users hardly ever will need a browser because its most common features are available more conveniently right in your favorite app.

People might like to consider what exactly they use a browser for and whether an OS equivalent that pops up in any app with context-sensitive suggestions, all hooked up to your other apps with voice control and automatic banking etc so you can hop between contexts at will, might be a displacing option. Certainly Google seems to think so if you look at their promotion of deep links.

>>Again I think this will shake out and the Web will win eventually - I'm just not sure when, mainly because some of the vendors - Apple mainly - are purposefully sabotaging the platform by implementing buggy and incomplete support for HTML 5 features and limiting functionality (like pinned Web links not retaining state between activations and generally providing an inferior shell UI for anything Web). Both Android and Windows Phone are doing a much better job of treating Web apps like first class citizens.

A cynic might say that calling it "sabotage" is a MS-centric viewpoint. Bearing in mind MS's place in the mobile world, the same cynic might say it's a self-serving model from somebody trying to make a silk purse of their sow's ear. If Google and Apple aren't heading in the web for everything direction, how will it come to pass? Even MS seems to have doubts as it quietly buys up apps for the prevalent mobile OS.