There are lots of great desktop apps, sure. And, for a specific task (like text editing, or watching videos, or playing music) a desktop app is usually better t

There are lots of great desktop apps, sure. And, for a specific task (like text editing, or watching videos, or playing music) a desktop app is usually better than a web app. However, I expect the ecosystem of desktop apps required to replace every website I use would be worse than the web. What I mean is, different websites work differently, and do different things. For example, you might imagine a single desktop app that replaces multiple news aggregators, like Reddit or HN. It would ignore the style of both sites, and replace it with a single, uniform way of displaying posts and threads. But, what features from each does it implement? Does it have both upvoting and downvoting, like Reddit, or just upvoting, like HN? Does it support deeply nested threads, like Reddit, or only a couple levels, like HN? You'd run into limitations like this when trying to have a single app do everything, so you'd end up having to have n applications, one for each website you were replacing... I'm also not with you on the "gnashing of teeth" point. I've never struggled to install, uninstall, or upgrade a website I was browsing.