Now you have the web AND the in-device app stores. Even more choice.
There could have been an open, cross-platform native app stack if Apple and Google and a consortium of other companies had joined forces and made it so. There's no technical reason preventing this. The economic incentives got us to where we are.
Devices should be easy to target. There should be the option to use multiple app stores right off the bat, and you shouldn't have to bundle to get access to Gmail. Or even better - point your browser at gmail.com and get the native app installed on your mobile device. Distributed updates from gmail.com sans app store. The OS would still control permissions and guard against malicious apps.
The world wide web era was truly unique and special, and it's a shame the same principles didn't carry into the mobile world.
What's the difference? There's also no technical reason preventing you from developing your own cross-platform native app stack that beats Apple's and Google's with no conceivable return on investment, constant PR disasters, and time-consuming negotiation with bad-faith or incompetent partners. The forces that stop you are mostly economic.
The rest is just saudosistic nostalgia. There wasn't mass access to the internet, you're just missing the times when a small elite had access to the internet.
Consumers are far better now than they were.
The interest wasn't massive because things were not super easy. Phones bridged the gap. Fast forward to today you have less choice but bigger buy buttons.
You’re also factually incorrect about “a small elite had access to the internet”. That may have been true in the 80s, but by 2000 usage was at 50% and climbed to 75% by 2010. I mean the dot com boom was predicated on wide user adoption, so I don’t even know why you would even think that stat made inuitive sense.
