I think this misses the point. React Native is not a replacement for the web in any meaningful sense. I think React Native can be a really useful platform to develop on, but it was developed precisely because iPhone and Android made it so difficult to build robust mobile applications with web technologies. The proliferation of apps that you have to download just to use it "once in a lifetime", as you say, is a consequence of trying to convert what can be done just as well on a free and open web into an isolated application. The web has plenty of problems - every open, standardized system does, and aging ones tend to have far more problems. But abandoning the web would be a complete disaster. I'm glad to see better options for building apps than what exists today. I think being able to use JavaScript to build the client side of native applications can be a tremendous boost to productivity, and I think native applications have and will always have their place. I love electron and I applaud the efforts of the React Native team for making otherwise unnecessarily isolated proprietary development platforms easier to integrate with and more accessible. But rooting for the end of the web is like rooting for the downfall of a free and democratic society - I'm pretty sure it's not something any of us actually want.