But your comparison is also not really fair, since you assume everything runs and is stored on your local computer. This is not the case anymore at all.
Plus, the web browser is probably the first application that is started by a user.
Following applications all run in my browser:
- email
- video conferencing with screen sharing
- (persistent) chatting
- Office applications (word processor, spreadsheet, ...)
- photo storage
- games
- development sandboxes
- ...
In fact most Apps I have on my phone could just be PWA's.
I'm not saying we should all go web, but I'm saying that most things where you want to use electron, you could let it run on the web.
- can't (realistically) use an alternative runtime. You are stuck with the JS ecosystem.
- can't start when the OS starts
- can't integrate with the UI (task bar, explorer menu, etc)
- can't run a server in the background for native perfs (like most electron apps actually do)
- can't open a server or a communication bus to allow apps cooperation, or playing well with the OS
- can't access the file system in any meaningful way to provide any kind of scanning ability
- can't store data reliably, or in any reasonable quantity
- can't call other local apps, run commands, etc
- can't access local libraries: so you do the crypto, hashing, dataprocessing in pure js
- can't access any non standard peripherics
- can't use the network, forget about avahi/bonjour, broacasting, capturing packets or doing CORS