I honestly don't see what developing for the web does to encourage smarter applications? Is it things like "If I do this, I have to round-trip to the server ove

I honestly don't see what developing for the web does to encourage smarter applications? Is it things like "If I do this, I have to round-trip to the server over the WAN?" or "If I do this, I have to ask the asshole middle-tier developer for something?" In fact, more and more desktop applications ARE web applications, they just don't use a web browser as a client. I suspect that Godin is a little bit off the curve here, and the moment is going to shift back toward the desktop (AIR and other sorts of things) where developers can build rich applications without having to hassle through the browser compatibility issues that can cripple teams.