Slowing to a crawl is counterproductive greed essentially as it repels the user base and doesn't aid sales. Google won out with text adds as opposed to "punch t

Slowing to a crawl is counterproductive greed essentially as it repels the user base and doesn't aid sales. Google won out with text adds as opposed to "punch the monkey" autoplay banner crap. Aside from that there is the issue of portability which comes with the power - namely supporting everything and barrier to entry. But the bigger difference is probably convenience. Web typically needs no install and less commitment and gives a single set of servers to work on for everybody. Take a general referral/word of mouth. Web has more or less "go to the URL and try it with no commmitments or extra steps" and web shopping found not needing to register was crucial for people actually trying. Now compare local first "Hey you should try and download Notepad++/git/etc." And that is before IT policies or licenses get involved which can mean a certain segment get a hard block they wouldn't for a web service unless they specifically decided that say "pastebin is a hard no" and then missed that the new hotness is say clipboard.com anyway. We had an approach which tried for its own best of both worlds with its own sandbox and that was in browser Java applets.