It doesn't seem that long there were plenty of people predicting that mobile apps were also going to render websites obsolete, but that didn't really happen, at

It doesn't seem that long there were plenty of people predicting that mobile apps were also going to render websites obsolete, but that didn't really happen, at least nothing like the extent that was predicted. In fact most of the main app only experiences like instagram have ended up creating web interfaces anyway. Maybe it will eventually happen but this article predicts some major brands shutting down their websites this year, which is like saying cryptocurrencies will start replacing cash in some major western countries this year. The only real value I can see in a brand shutting down it's website for a chatbot only service right now is the the free publicity they will get for doing so. Websites are normally relatively cheap to run so there is no real reason to kill them off unless it's getting no traffic compared to the chatbot channels and from my own experiences in this area, chatbots aren't even close to website use yet (but I am in Australia, where things like Alexa and Google Home are quite new in the market compared to the US).