This article misses the point badly. Sure, web apps are becoming thicker clients. But they're clients which run on any OS (and often on your phone), and can be downloaded with no install process and few worries about malware. And how many of your old stand-alone apps are even clients at all?

From the developer's perspective, it's even better: there's no upgrade process for your users, so new features and bugfixes can go out to all your users instantly (or not, your choice).