Google are trying to find a direction for web programming. The browsers have made plugins obsolete, but the plugins did bring something that the standard web technologies may have been missing.
What is hard is to change JavaScript from the outside. They may have found that impossible to do. The direction started with asm.js shows that JavaScript needs to change from the inside. JavaScript can be changed and remain largely compatible, but it will not be without the drawbacks. The path started with transpiling and polyfills may help to keep some backward compatibility, for example. :-)
Not all problems can be solved with just 1 technology. It will continue to look more like a mash-up. The challenge is to make it cross-platform. Google have to run ads on those things for it to help with the bottom line.
What is hard is to change JavaScript from the outside. They may have found that impossible to do. The direction started with asm.js shows that JavaScript needs to change from the inside. JavaScript can be changed and remain largely compatible, but it will not be without the drawbacks. The path started with transpiling and polyfills may help to keep some backward compatibility, for example. :-)
Not all problems can be solved with just 1 technology. It will continue to look more like a mash-up. The challenge is to make it cross-platform. Google have to run ads on those things for it to help with the bottom line.