It's not just that it makes the web less powerful, it also makes it less private and less user-controllable. There is no effective way to build an offline webap

It's not just that it makes the web less powerful, it also makes it less private and less user-controllable. There is no effective way to build an offline webapp that handles important data, if you're building a website that handles actually important data -- that data is getting synced to an online account. As a result there are a number of web-apps that could be entirely account-free and offline that aren't. It also makes it a lot harder for users to move and transform data, although maybe that's less of a consideration nowadays since mobile has kind of standardized data silos even for native apps that would have previously had portable databases or worked directly with files. Not saying you should want it, I completely understand and am completely sympathetic to anyone who says "the benefits don't outweigh the risks." That is a fine position for someone to take. That being said, this isn't just about trying to make the web more powerful, it's also in a lot of ways about fixing long-time deficiencies in the web that have made it less private and that forcibly shift the majority of even well-intentioned web software into a user-hostile SaaS model. When every webapp is a SaaS business with web accounts, that decreases hobby development in favor of corporate development and encourages users to spread their data in (imo) irresponsible ways.