Users can adapt to anything because they're flexible and smart. Humans can put up with a lot of problematic things and find their way through anyway, but that's

Users can adapt to anything because they're flexible and smart. Humans can put up with a lot of problematic things and find their way through anyway, but that's not a great justification for doing so. I think if you want to make a user-centric argument about this, it's that users like web apps because although the UIs end up primitive and inconsistent, the benefits are worth it, benefits like: - "Instant on" apps without having to manage the computers resources via installation and uninstallation. - Hassle-free updates that don't bug them all the time due to perverse/skewed value systems amongst developers, who think users deeply care about whether to accept an update or not. - Not having to worry about malware - Not having to worry about backups - Not having to worry about your lethargic and incompetent IT department to roll things out etc etc. Lots of advantages to web apps, none of which are really intrinsic to the web platform itself and all of which could be implemented also in desktop apps. As in fact, Chrome tries hard to do. But I don't think the proliferation of web apps is actually due to end-user focused arguments. I think it's mostly about developer convenience and a lot of cultural/ideological assumptions. Web apps are piracy free and naturally justify a subscription model. People have to learn HTML+JS at some point to make websites, so at that point it makes sense to double down on those skills and keep iterating them to learn to make apps as well. You can write cross platform software with Qt or Java but for the longest time (not any more?) people associated the web with openness, being free-as-in-beer, decentralisation, not being controlled by any one company etc. A lot of wholesome stuff. On mobile that's probably still true. On the desktop it's no longer quite so true, if it ever was, but lots of developers really wanted to make a web apps for social reasons as much as technical reasons.