The reason this happened is very simple. Notifications on platforms like iOS are only possible with installed apps and a server somewhere that's capable of send

The reason this happened is very simple. Notifications on platforms like iOS are only possible with installed apps and a server somewhere that's capable of sending notifications. XMPP was great, it even had polling options for people behind shitty firewalls, but at the end of the day it wasn't possible to drop in a XMPP client and have it receive notifications without server support. This inherently balkanized messaging to each individual app. Further, the browser made installing applications locally a lesser-done thing, and since browsers weren't complex enough when the transition was happening (they didn't have notifications or LocalStorage at the time) an XMPP client in the browser alone (ie, sans coordinating server) wasn't possible. There will be a solution one day though. Some entity always figures out a way to aggregate the things people want aggregated. If I had to guess I'd put my money on the OS, since there is no way to hide from it. In a fight between Apple and FaceBook I know who wins. The future looks like Her (2014).