Web-apps (and the WWW browsers making them possible) were supposed to be the solution to the portability problem. They're not and layering more crap on top of them is not the solution either.
Leaving other (e.g., security) issues aside, this plan would make things far worse. Would new processors be second-class citizens? Would WWW browsers have to (incompatibly) transform themselves into emulators/VMs for the different kinds of "native code" found on the Wild Wild Web?
Most importantly: Would this be the first step toward a closed/proprietary WWW? "View Source" is still useful in this regard, despite the amount of useless JavaScript obfuscation we're seeing today.
New processors are already at a huge disadvantage; one problem is that it takes a huge amount of engineering effort to match the performance of existing processors, even if you do a lot better, another problem is, well, you actually have to convince people to buy your shit when no one is actually cross-compiling to it yet. It's not that big of a difference.
You're misunderstanding: the browsers are the native code living on the WWW.
A platform like this would enable people to create proprietary websites, much the same way people can implement systems like Steam as native applications.
A question always worth asking: Had this system been implemented in 1995, would we have ARM-based devices today? Why or why not?
Note that ARM never attempted to compete with x86 on performance, and indeed still can't. That doesn't mean that it wasn't useful for other purposes.
So yes, new processors are at a huge disadvantage unless they bring something to the table that none of the existing ones have. But the question is whether you want to prevent a processor that _does_ bring something new from being usable by making it impossible to use the web on it.
> A platform like this would enable people to create proprietary websites, much the same way people can implement systems like Steam as native applications.
Leaving other (e.g., security) issues aside, this plan would make things far worse. Would new processors be second-class citizens? Would WWW browsers have to (incompatibly) transform themselves into emulators/VMs for the different kinds of "native code" found on the Wild Wild Web?
Most importantly: Would this be the first step toward a closed/proprietary WWW? "View Source" is still useful in this regard, despite the amount of useless JavaScript obfuscation we're seeing today.