I think that the browser is going to eat the desktop/OS and that most apps will eventually be browser-based.
PWAs are the initial movement in that direction. As browser APIs expand and support more use-cases through WebAssembly, WebGPU, native filesystem APIs, etc. more and more apps that were primarily or only available as native can be supported in the browser.
I know that many people hate web apps because they're often slow, clunky, bloated, etc. but a lot of that is changing as the frontend ecosystem embraces new and more efficient frameworks and technologies. The browser provides everything one needs to build fast and responsive applications - It's an issue with incentives and culture more than anything to do with the fundamental tech.
Will JavaScript-based web apps ever run as smoothly as FamiTracker (and to some degree Telegram Desktop) on a Core 2 Duo machine, or take up negligible memory (so you won't have to close some apps to start others) on today's 4-8GB machines?
But then again, modern native apps are dog slow on old hardware; Visual Studio 2022 would hang for over 10 seconds at a time, but it's arguably excusable since it doesn't support running on Windows 7 which I was doing.
PWAs are the initial movement in that direction. As browser APIs expand and support more use-cases through WebAssembly, WebGPU, native filesystem APIs, etc. more and more apps that were primarily or only available as native can be supported in the browser.
I know that many people hate web apps because they're often slow, clunky, bloated, etc. but a lot of that is changing as the frontend ecosystem embraces new and more efficient frameworks and technologies. The browser provides everything one needs to build fast and responsive applications - It's an issue with incentives and culture more than anything to do with the fundamental tech.