Normal people never cared about web browsers, but that didn't stop web browsers from spreading like a virus. Most of them don't even understand the concept. If you ask them what a browser is, they'll probably answer Google.
As an example, I love my e-Ink Kindle. The one big annoyance I have is that the browser on it is so awful that it is unusable. And it bothers me because book authors are often placing links to external references in the books I read.
And I just want to read those references. Maybe add a comment or two if it's a blog. Since I'm there anyway, maybe I want to recommend the book on Facebook or Twitter with, you guessed it, a link. Maybe I want to search on the web for other discussions on the topic. And so on and so forth.
It's not about love for the web browser per se. The browser is an awful virtual machine. Also the HTTP protocol is one of the featureless protocols in existence. The development model is scary sometimes as you've got to learn dozens of technologies, each specialized for a certain task, each broken in its own special way.
But developers bitching about this are missing the point. It turns out that the openness of the web is disruptive and simple form elements communicating over a simple protocol is all you ever need for 80% of the use-cases.
Quite the contrary, I'm seeing the web stronger than ever before. The one big problem I'm seeing however are walled gardens. Some day from now we'll look back and actually see what a big mistake this was. But the web as we know it will still be there. Because nothing can really replace it.
It's success when it was created, and maybe now, yes.
But how about a future where everything has a mobile phone and/or tablet, but fewer have or care to use a web browser?