Its the other way round. If web apps didnt exist, there would be more pressure to develop tools that make it easy to write and distribute proper applications.

Serious question: do you remember the late '90s and early '00s? Have you used Visual Basic, or Qt, or anything? There was an era before web apps existed, and there were tools that made it easy to write and distribute proper applications - are you claiming that that didn't happen, or what?

I didnt, dymk did.

You're the one claiming that tools would exist to make it easy. I am saying that they did exist, and they were as easy as possible. What remains to be done, and why didn't it happen before the invention of XMLHTTPRequest? Could it get easier, and if so, how?

Under what circumstances would webapps not exist in some form or another? It's a system for deploying applications via the web, and JavaScript is primarily the language that they're implemented in.

I will bet you that in 99% of alternative timelines, we'd end up with something incredibly similar to what we've got today, and you'd still be complaining that applications aren't "native" enough, because practically nobody cares that a taskbar or button isn't a native OS component. They care that their application works, and can be quickly deployed and updated.

> Under what circumstances would webapps not exist in some form or another?

Browsers not supporting nonsense like Javascript.