Web applications intrinsically suck and aren't particularly viable unless your product fits the SaaS business model (I find that most things of value to me do not, personally) and unless you want to spend your life supporting SaaS (I like not getting pager alerts at 3AM).
Linux has such a small userbase as to be essentially irrelevant. Platform fragmentation is a massive pain in the ass and its users are generally unwilling to spend money on software (video game addictions aside).
Android has a userbase but they don't seem to really spend money, either; the overwhelmingly dominant revenue source for most cross-platform applications is iOS. And I say that as somebody who really likes Android and uses a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 as daily devices.
You can "develop for an open platform" and have shit-all for a potential ceiling or you can take the (generally minor) risk of developing for iOS and actually have a chance (if small) of making something that pays for itself. It's disingenous to tell developers "well, develop for an open platform" when doing so means you don't pay your rent.
If you are married to a specific business model (selling applications) then yes ... maybe you are stuck on iOS.
But, people are definitely making a good living pursuing other business models for software on the web, Android, etc.
Some people even make money selling games on open platforms (Minecraft is an example off the top of my head. There are several other PC games that come to mind.)
Linux has such a small userbase as to be essentially irrelevant. Platform fragmentation is a massive pain in the ass and its users are generally unwilling to spend money on software (video game addictions aside).
Android has a userbase but they don't seem to really spend money, either; the overwhelmingly dominant revenue source for most cross-platform applications is iOS. And I say that as somebody who really likes Android and uses a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 as daily devices.
You can "develop for an open platform" and have shit-all for a potential ceiling or you can take the (generally minor) risk of developing for iOS and actually have a chance (if small) of making something that pays for itself. It's disingenous to tell developers "well, develop for an open platform" when doing so means you don't pay your rent.