Unfortunately, apps have always been the barrier to entry for competing options.
If your platform doesn't have apps, then your platform won't have users, which won't attract developers and BigCo's to write apps for your platform. Rinse and repeat.
This is how Windows Phone was wiped out, despite them spending *a lot* of money trying to attract companies and developers to write stuff for their OS.
Windows Phone was fantastic because it had no apps. Wish it managed to stake out and maintain a decent portion of the phone market. If 30% of the population could say "Oh sorry TicketMaster, I can't install your app, please just email me a pdf or text me a link to your tickets that I can just open in a web browser" the that would benefit everyone, even non-WP users.
If your platform doesn't have apps, then your platform won't have users, which won't attract developers and BigCo's to write apps for your platform. Rinse and repeat.
This is how Windows Phone was wiped out, despite them spending *a lot* of money trying to attract companies and developers to write stuff for their OS.