Believe it or not, around the turn of the century there were many thick client apps. But back then it was a challenge to ship and update these applications. This pain, along with the continued rollout of broadband led many to advocate for creating applications that would run in a web browser while being controlled on centralized servers. In practice, turning the platform that was designed to render markup text into an application host. This would allow applications to be shipped and updated with little interaction from the user.

However, right about the same time web apps were taking over the world there were thick client apps that were solving the problems of installation and and updates. Two of the prominent thick client applications doing this were iTunes and the browsers themselves.

Now fast forward a decade to the early teens and the ubiquitous use of smart phones. What is the single largest determining factor of platform success? Is it the ability for web apps to render on your platform's web browser or is it the breadth and depth of your platform's app store?

My rant is over, I wish web apps would die. I've wished that for most of the 21st century.