Web apps are definitely getting better, I haven't used an actual email client in 10 years, but they have a long way to go before they can replace dedicated clients entirely.
And yet, just yesterday there was a great discussion on Virtual Desktop Infrastructures, where entire operating systems are accessed and operated virtually through just the browser [0].
The current top comment indicates that while there are some setup hoops to jump through to use a specific OS, the performance itself "works very well" [1]. Does this not qualify as a web app replacing a client entirely?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11721466 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722141
If you can pull up a video stream from a surveillance camera in your house then you no longer need a home?
When you watch Daredevil on the Netflix App on your phone do you think that the actors are inside your phone performing live action for you?
What they're discussing is a web app that allows you to interact with a remote client. That client OS still exists and the UI/UX is still being rendered by a nonweb technology, the pixels rendered are just being streamed to your web browser instead of to a monitor and your inputs are being captured and transmitted to that client OS.
Ideally I'd like to have a minimal OS and file set on my local machine (for offline and poor connectivity scenarios), that automatically syncs with my own, encrypted cloud system, such that I can (at my own discretion) update the OS from controlled sources (e.g. git). But I don't think there is enough interest from others for such a system, and I'm occupied with enough other projects that I won't be able to set up such a system.
I do use Github for some projects, but I also maintain local copies and maintain my own backups for all my projects.
If pinboard.in ever disappeared, it'd be like loosing an appendage! It might not be as bad as loosing an entire arm or leg, but its loss would be equivalent to at least a finger or two!
Heck, what would be really interesting would be hardware acceleration for the final version of WebAssembly. That should (?) make it competitive with regular assembly.
Oddly enough, just yesterday I started using an email client once more (emacs+gnus, for Gmail). It just felt so _nice_. And fast too!