We're talking about the modern landscape of native applications -- iOS, Android -- in which apps certainly have not "lost". The legacy desktop application distr

We're talking about the modern landscape of native applications -- iOS, Android -- in which apps certainly have not "lost". The legacy desktop application distribution model you're referencing -- one in which a toolbar can spy on you -- is fading away. The web has the distribution problem solved, but as an application technology platform, it's horrible. Now that we've got a route forward with distribution of native apps, the native app market is growing by leaps and bounds, and it's the web that needs to catch up. What I'd like to see is a common application platform, PNaCL based, with consistent high-level APIs .. but that would NOT be the web as we know it. It would be another native application platform.