The web solved distribution and that's why the web won. Click on a link see a page. Click on a link open an app. The alternative was downloading a .exe from que

The web solved distribution and that's why the web won. Click on a link see a page. Click on a link open an app. The alternative was downloading a .exe from questionable origin over an unreliable dial-up connection. App stores have become hugely successful since and if Microsoft had invented the mobile app model in the 90s (sandboxing and 1 click install process, like flatpak on linux) that model would probably have won instead of the web app. The web was incredibly buggy and horrifically slow for 2 decades, but there was no alternative so it won by default.