I believe the most popular website is essentially an interface for this collection of hyperlinked documents. Document browsing is still one of the killer features of web.
HTML is not a bad layout engine for GUI apps. It may not have been initially been designed as one, but after 15 years of development it seems to be pretty pleasant to work with as there are people who want to build their desktop apps with HTML.
Obviously, the standard request-response model of HTTP is limiting for interactive apps. Bi-directional communication within request isn't possible and handshaking is a bit too expensive. But hey, this problem is actually solved: http://dev.w3.org/html5/websockets/.
HTML is not a bad layout engine for GUI apps. It may not have been initially been designed as one, but after 15 years of development it seems to be pretty pleasant to work with as there are people who want to build their desktop apps with HTML.
Obviously, the standard request-response model of HTTP is limiting for interactive apps. Bi-directional communication within request isn't possible and handshaking is a bit too expensive. But hey, this problem is actually solved: http://dev.w3.org/html5/websockets/.