Because the trend is also towards doing more over the web. The web is replacing traditional thick clients, which also assumed a fairly stable network connectio

Because the trend is also towards doing more over the web. The web is replacing traditional thick clients, which also assumed a fairly stable network connection and platform specification. Government systems need to work with the lowest denominator - even if it's not that common. Tech startups only need 1 client to exist at the start (and can mostly trust that their requirements will become commonplace as they scale).