You joke, but Emacs commands just interface the standard tools on your system, not replace them.

And yes, Emacs programs get deprecated fast (compared to UNIX programs, they are way, way slow compared to JS code), but somehow people don't suffer to update them (mostly because people developing for Emacs know about that "compatibility" word).

It works for Emacs because it gives everything a consistent yet very powerful user interface, that facilitates heavy interoperability. In fact, that interface is more consistent and more powerful than most people have in their operating system.

Browsers, on the other hand, promote the exact opposite - inconsistent and weak interfaces, and no interop.