Not a great strategy. Can't compare apples and oranges. Long term weakening their web offering will only strengthen their competition and likely have compounding effects against their app store. Maybe it's a short term thing for them. Seems a better way would be to embrace web and create the synergies with their existing offerings that boost both...but, I think this highlights the issue

It's not so much about a binary choice between app store vs web. I think it's more just, the web is not very "Apple". It's too open, wild. If they go "all in" on the web, they'd be afraid to risk "losing themselves" or fucking something up and creating a backlash.