[austinhallock]

Openness is still there in the examples of Kik, Twitter and Facebook as new 'browsers' - though less-so with Twitter and Facebook. With Twitter and Facebook you're limited to starting points of links friends post. With something like Kik, you can access any site just like you would in a traditional browser, but it improves 1) the poor retention mobile web generally has and 2) distribution (sharing links has less friction).

People are using apps instead of the web for certain services because they're easier to find (both initially, and for subsequent uses), easier to use, and more polished. The point is, this is all changing in favor of mobile web. Mobile apps can become just as easy to use and have close to the same level of polish, but more importantly, they can become easier to discover. Flappy Bird was successful because of social media, not discovery directly from the app store - the app store just added more friction.

Retention is the biggest potential point of failure for mobile web, and that's something I think Kik has solved pretty well. There are other examples of good solutions for this (eg Firefox OS), but none of them have enough traction to serve as a good proof-point.