>I would agree with you if not for the fact that a lot of these popular "native apps" are just webpages within a native wrapper, which kind of defeats your argu

>I would agree with you if not for the fact that a lot of these popular "native apps" are just webpages within a native wrapper, which kind of defeats your argument. This doesn't seem true at all. What popular "native" apps are you talking about? The most popular native apps couldn't exist on the web on the early days. YouTube couldn't work on the web due to the dependence on Flash. Instagram couldn't exist without camera access (and arguably fast image processing which JS couldn't do at the time). The technology to build some of the most downloaded apps like Words With Friends or Angry Birds could not be done on the web.