It would be funny if it weren’t so annoying to observe how it’s the lazy, the complacent and the unreflective who most of the times turn out to be the more whining, needy and “vulnerable” members of any community.
There’s a new debate now about how the recent generation of apps introduced by the iPhone and the iPad led smart-mobile-devices that use the net only as a pipe to transfer data, are about to burry the good ole' .html based www in all it’s glorious, although not unproblematic, diversity as we got to know it over the last 15 years. If not yet aware of it, one can get a good idea about this topic here.
The two main issues most people commenting on the matter seem to have are different in perspective: one is ethical and the other economic. The first deplores the very likely possibility of information being corrupted, if only by selection if not downright by manipulative intentions, while being delivered through these specialised apps and the latter whines about the companies providing those streamlined apps with their readily and easily applicable in day to day life information, charging for them.
Well, what in Darwin’s world do people expect? Isn’t it already painfully clear that there is NO such thing as “impartial selection” and furthermore that there is NO free lunch?! If one accepts to delegate their very choice-making and gobble on "filtered" information that one has only to be bothered to “digest”, one should also be prepared to have their menu set for them and also to be presented with a bill for this "benefit". And apparently, at least according to the values western societies are run by, there is nothing inherently wrong with this.
So it seems to me the debate is not, or shouldn’t be, about wether "apps are killing the web" but on how to help all those lazy whiners understand they are themselves responsible for complacently handing their freedom and their wallets to corporations who by their very nature will not wait to be asked twice to jump at such occasion.
You want to preserve the prerogative of making your own mind and take informed decisions based on unadulterated information (as much as there can be such a thing)? Then stop comfortably relying on all the “push” media and start to exert yourself in a bit of “pulling”. It might take a bit longer and there is also the "risk" of exhausting yourself by doing some discerning thinking, but if not being just another witless molecule in the waves stirred by a few shrewd merchants holds any value to you, it’s well worth it!