it's funny how FirefoxOS still feels modern. Thinking about it, I have a 10 year old browser on my old smartphone, which also feels modern. Not really much has happened since HTML5. We got a datepicker?, wait, that was HTML5, so I guess nothing new has been added. Instead web dev's build their own web components using poor performing web frameworks. Speaking for myself I spent two weeks making a freaking window menu for a web app, yeh, I know window menus are not good UI, but it's what people are used to, and I made it work with keyboard and screen readers.
The browser market is worth around 5 billion, but that is only if you count bribe money from Google. You could double that number from showing ads directly. But you could make two orders of magnitude more if you had an actual business model (that did not resolve around ads, although ads can be used as a complement). Quick hanging fruit: Micro transactions, in (web) app purchases... Instead I have to walk around with a plastic card with numbers on it, the only security is the last 3 numbers, that are also printed on the plastic card. There is no encryption, no digital signing, freaking ston-age! And we pay 2-5% plus a monthly fee to use it, wtf!
The cloud business is a slow growing market, but I expect it to explode in maybe 10 years or so. Other companies, like Microsoft also thinks so, and are investing heavily in the cloud. But what is the main UI to access "the cloud"!? The browser... With "the browser" you become a middleman between the platform players and the content providers.
Normal users don't care what stack they are on, it's just that the native UI elements are better then the browser components. So native apps usually performs better then web apps. And are nicer to use.
Browsers are not just for documents any more. (most corporations still use word documents and pdf, sigh). Ever since browsers got scripting capabilities developers want (including myself) to build apps in the browser. Just look at electron. Developers want to build front-ends using browser technology!
Just like gfx cards give the developer the ability to draw triangles, the browser gives you divs. But a gfx card can paint billions of triangles per second, while the browser can only handle a few hundred DOM elements.
Another low hanging fruit are app to app integrations. On a native platform you can copy content from one app to another app, you can save a file in one app, and open it in another app, but not so much in the browser. Although modern browser can make use of the system clipboard, data is sent from one app -> to the device -> then back to the other app. It should instead go directly from (cloud) server to server.
Sorry for the random ramblings, I'm just a web developer trying to re-invent the wheel.
(I'm also looking for a job where I can play with this crippled browser tech, or a PO role where I can just point in the right direction and smarter people take care of the execution)