I still haven't found a web-based IDE that does what I want, but here are some of the theoretical advantages I can see: • why have a real-time browser preview

I still haven't found a web-based IDE that does what I want, but here are some of the theoretical advantages I can see: • why have a real-time browser preview in your IDE when you can have a realtime-IDE preview in every browser you want to test in? • access your workspace with your settings from any computer (and OS) • you could deeplink directly to lines of code in a browser and place that in documentation or tickets to make it easier for people to reference • real-time multi-user editing could be made possible this way • never need to update/upgrade your IDE software as the online code can be improved seamlessly and instantly for all users • instantly make code shareable to another person • create and manage temporary access to specific parts of code for online users I think most of what you are reacting to has nothing to do with the technology involved in running a web-based IDE, but rather you object to the hassles involved with running a business around providing a web-based IDE. You could build a web-based IDE that didn't require a login, but how would it save your settings or projects? You could build a web-based IDE that didn't store or access code online and only worked from your local storage too, it would just be silly for many people to go to all that effort and not have the obvious advantages of being online as well. Perhaps a better solution than public cloud services is a class of business software built using web technology that each user operates privately.