I've seen this sentiment a few times: "don't try to replicate native apps in the browser." Which makes sense from the standpoint that the browser is just getting ridiculous, like a mini-OS unto itself.
However, web apps also allow organizations to write once for many platforms in a much more seamless way than most cross-platform native toolkits I've seen. It's the same reason that desktop Java was in vogue for a little while: you only have to write one UI, and you can run it from a HTTP connection with almost no local permissions. Of course, this was (and still is) a security nightmare, but browsers now do a pretty good job of sandboxing individual code blobs, and also do a pretty good job of abstracting away the native UI. Web apps also provide low or zero installation overhead (low friction to getting a user onboarded/working/monetized/whatever).
It would be nice to see some progressive enhancement folks address how to resolve these pain points on the native side, rather than just saying web shouldn't be like native.
However, web apps also allow organizations to write once for many platforms in a much more seamless way than most cross-platform native toolkits I've seen. It's the same reason that desktop Java was in vogue for a little while: you only have to write one UI, and you can run it from a HTTP connection with almost no local permissions. Of course, this was (and still is) a security nightmare, but browsers now do a pretty good job of sandboxing individual code blobs, and also do a pretty good job of abstracting away the native UI. Web apps also provide low or zero installation overhead (low friction to getting a user onboarded/working/monetized/whatever).
It would be nice to see some progressive enhancement folks address how to resolve these pain points on the native side, rather than just saying web shouldn't be like native.