I've built some single-file HTML page tools at work that use newer Web APIs (WebSerial, WebUSB) and essentially utilize the browser as a cross-platform application virtual machine, which is a great way to think about browsers. With WASM compilation, Canvas, and WebSockets, combined with this self-modifying concept where an HTML file is a contained, stateful application that can persist, we've got very interesting possibilities for the future of user-facing applications, both local and fetched remotely. This is probably exactly what some of the visionaries at Google were thinking of when they concepted the Chromebook and Chrome OS.