The reason native apps have avoided that fate is because they are not cross-platform, they are entirely controlled by a single vendor. Of course you also have

The reason native apps have avoided that fate is because they are not cross-platform, they are entirely controlled by a single vendor. Of course you also have cross-platform GUI toolkits like Java and Qt, but they suck because they don't have true vendor support. The web has solved these things: it's an open standard which any serious device maker must support to be taken seriously. It can load applications in a relatively safe sandbox on demand. And it does all this with tremendous backwards compatibility that even 90s Microsoft would be envious of. You're absolutely right Chrome is a virtualized operating system, but that's what it takes to be open and cross platform. Designing a better platform is the easy part; getting it to cross the chasm where it has first class device vendor support on a majority of platforms is the practically insurmountable part. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I don't think any organized group of humans has the power to do it intentionally.