I think this is a valid position in the native/web app debate. Most apps are actually web sites, but they are mistakenly built as computer programs. This is not good engineering. In an ideal world %90 of the apps (anything but utilities, games and graphics applications) would remain as web sites, like they are on PCs. We never install a shopping application to our PCs. Web is the standardized and correct way of presenting interactive content.
Also note that Apple was against Flash mainly because it contradicts with this walled garden approach. Web+Flash (or HTML5 today) was the standard and free way of building almost all of the "apps" in the PC era. Native may have a performance gain in the short term (which becomes irrelevant in the long term as Moore's law dictates) but our loss of time and standardization in the development of an open and accessible (mobile) web lasts longer.
Also note that Apple was against Flash mainly because it contradicts with this walled garden approach. Web+Flash (or HTML5 today) was the standard and free way of building almost all of the "apps" in the PC era. Native may have a performance gain in the short term (which becomes irrelevant in the long term as Moore's law dictates) but our loss of time and standardization in the development of an open and accessible (mobile) web lasts longer.