It's not just the web, native apps have always had free open source clones that technically render them useless, often just as good quality, yet they didn't go out of business. There are other considerations people make when deciding to use an app, including network effect, a strong community, sheer level of quality and passion from the developers, etc.
For fonts, I just went with a simple raster bitmap font and pixel grid storage format. Creating these limitations makes it easier for me and for developers and artists. I choose 320x180 because it fits the 16:9 perfectly, which would make full screen ideal on most monitors.