Smart companies and individuals don't spend much money on SEO, as most white-hat practices require long-term focus and black-hat practices can get you erased from the Internet. You can't do anything unless you're doing marketing, however marketing must be part of the product and can't be outsourced.
With that said, web apps go viral faster than anything else, that's because there's no barrier to entry. You don't have to be a member of the iPhone users club to try out links.
web app development can be a multilayered
nightmare of browser bugs and code shims
Compared to multi-platform development for OS X, iOS, Android, Symbian, WinMo 6, WinMo 7, Windows 7, Windows 8, Blackberry, Samsung Bada, Linux ; it's heaven like.
you pretty much need to sell your soul to a
bank or Paypal to sell anything on the web
Except Paypal or a bank are NOT in the same market as you are. They also don't control the platform you operate on. They couldn't suddenly one day decide that your product should be part of the OS, making their own alternative.
If you're getting screwed by Paypal, you're only losing some money. However, if you're getting screwed by Apple, you lose your product and business model.
Compared to multi-platform development for OS X,
iOS, Android, Symbian, WinMo 6, WinMo 7, Windows 7,
Windows 8, Blackberry, Samsung Bada, Linux ; it's
heaven like.
You make this sound much worse than it actually is. iOS is where the money is and Android is up and coming. All the others can be either ignored and served with a (funnily enough) web site.
Then there are libraries / frameworks that abstract all these platforms away or allow you to use a language that you're experienced in: MonoTouch, PhoneGap, Unity, etc.
Now, libraries don't fix all the problems and sometimes you will have to deal with the platform but they do take care of a whole lot.
As a long-term investment, it's a bad choice though. I still make money from web apps built in 2007, and there's a pretty good chance i 'll keep making it with incremental changes in the following years. I doubt i 'd say the same if i'd started with phone apps in the pre-iphone era.
As randomdata pointed out, I think this goes more to proving my point than yours. They did a lot of work to get to that point. Contrast that with "Tiny Wings" that showed up and started making a huge amount of money.
I'll grant you that it's more effort today than it was with an App, but an App platform provides an easier method of discovery [1], an easy method for billing and even an advertising platform. With the web this is all on you and the web is more ad focused so you're probably more likely to be competing with free.
[1] Random chance with the user entering the right google keywords vs doing a category search in the app store and knowing you can see everything in that category.
Not a good example. 37signals had a huge following long before Basecamp. Their success in web apps was largely from leveraging that existing fan base. Most developers do not have the luxury.
With that said, web apps go viral faster than anything else, that's because there's no barrier to entry. You don't have to be a member of the iPhone users club to try out links.
Compared to multi-platform development for OS X, iOS, Android, Symbian, WinMo 6, WinMo 7, Windows 7, Windows 8, Blackberry, Samsung Bada, Linux ; it's heaven like. Except Paypal or a bank are NOT in the same market as you are. They also don't control the platform you operate on. They couldn't suddenly one day decide that your product should be part of the OS, making their own alternative.If you're getting screwed by Paypal, you're only losing some money. However, if you're getting screwed by Apple, you lose your product and business model.