> there is not much more distance to cover [relative to native toolkits]
As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again around 2009 when CSS media queries became mainstream to adapt to mobile usage. For me, the excessive push for browser APIs as a desktop replacement since then, and the proliferation of frameworks is a generational thing, driven not by technology but by big data, SaaS (prospect of extracting recurring revenue from customers, rather than one-time license fees), and a new generation of developers getting into the game by leaving the status quo behind, solely for their own economical benefit. Google has masterfully played this game, and let the idea of open web standards bend the minds of developers who thought they were clever. Moz partnering with them under WHATWG seemed like a good idea at the time, but just made the concept of a web standard arbitrary and "whatever Chrome does" over time, leading to Moz's demise and that of every other "browser vendor".
It'll take some stance and political will to reclaim the web.
The alternative is an internet completely locked down in native apps in proprietary and unaccountable app stores. I'll take a bloated web browser over a corporate monoculture any day.
Sorry which is which? Because right now Chrome engine has more control of the web then IE did in it's heyday when Microsoft was ruled to be a monopoly.
Are you aware that Blink, Webkit and V8 are all open source?
With most people working out of Apple, Microsoft and Google salaries, good luck getting a bunch of random weekend coders to pick up and counterattack an alternative browser based on that open source.
The ungoogled-chromium project [0] presumably doesn't take all that much manpower as it's just taking Chromium and paring it down a little. A true alternative browser codebase like Firefox, with its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine, takes a great deal of effort, of course.