The web became successful because of the constrained formats of URL's, HTTP and HTML. This allowed linking between uncoordinated parties and it allowed indexing

The web became successful because of the constrained formats of URL's, HTTP and HTML. This allowed linking between uncoordinated parties and it allowed indexing and searching. In contrast, powerful executable "black box" objects have been suggested as a better alternative to the constraints of the web, and Java applets and MS Silverlight were implementations of this idea. But they never solved the basic problems if linking and searching. Even JavaScript-heavy sites have trouble with supporting indexing.