He invented the URL, which is the most important component of the web, since this is what makes cross-system hypertext possible. Hypercard was not networked and Gopher were not hypertext, and neither allowed you to link to external objects. The genius of the web was that it was not a closed system, but via URL's allowed links across information systems and protocols. This is probably why the web succeeded while all the other walled-garden systems failed.

Note that TBL never expected HTTP and HTML to replace all other protocols, they were just intended as a hypertext system which could connect to all the existing systems like Gopher, NNTP and so on, thereby increasing the usefulness of all the systems.