There are so many interesting jumping off points in this post.
* Must web apps go the same route (of consolidation) as desktop apps have (largely resulting in a Windows monopoly)?
* What's to be said about the fact that we're now seeing a dramatic increase in platform diversity in the form of mobile platforms, web apps, and even an increase in the diversity of desktop computing platforms?
* Web apps (HTML/CSS/JS) are one interface to the Internet; what about apps with the Internet as transport and APIs as the endpoint?
* Have we forgotten how young all this internet technology is? The GUI was born (commercially) in 1984 with the release of the Macintosh, making it almost 30 years old. The timeline for web apps is a lot fuzzier. In 1995 NSFNET disappeared and the Internet was 100% available to commercial organizations, but didn't take off right away. Still, if you take 1995 as the "beginning" of the web application, that makes it half as old as the GUI.
IMHO, your third point about "apps with the Internet as transport and APIs as the endpoint" is now where all the interesting client behavior is. Web apps in this regard are just clients implemented in JavaScript.
* Must web apps go the same route (of consolidation) as desktop apps have (largely resulting in a Windows monopoly)?
* What's to be said about the fact that we're now seeing a dramatic increase in platform diversity in the form of mobile platforms, web apps, and even an increase in the diversity of desktop computing platforms?
* Web apps (HTML/CSS/JS) are one interface to the Internet; what about apps with the Internet as transport and APIs as the endpoint?
* Have we forgotten how young all this internet technology is? The GUI was born (commercially) in 1984 with the release of the Macintosh, making it almost 30 years old. The timeline for web apps is a lot fuzzier. In 1995 NSFNET disappeared and the Internet was 100% available to commercial organizations, but didn't take off right away. Still, if you take 1995 as the "beginning" of the web application, that makes it half as old as the GUI.