I agree that those are all methods of solving each issue -- but I think expecting each player to implement them (and correctly!) is the real problem. And when

I agree that those are all methods of solving each issue -- but I think expecting each player to implement them (and correctly!) is the real problem. And when the standards don't support the feature they want, many developers would fall back to the web. It's hard to compete with a full-featured layout, style, and scripting implementation when it comes to customization. Nor should they; they should instead support agreed-upon standards, like how web browsers support agreed-upon standards for HTML/CSS/Javascript files and HTTP(S) 1.x/2.0. There are web standards now, but, in practice, when you're supporting multiple environments, you're also testing against them. For webapps, fortunately, this usually just entails testing the top 5 browsers for a few versions, and mobile devices if you support them. If the user comes to support saying something is broken with the video on their native app, trying to troubleshoot their native environment can be difficult, and telling them that their environment might be configured wrong often doesn't solve their problem. Which is why I suspect each site would support specific players.. not being a real improvement over the Gecko or WebKit <video>, <audio> in my mind..