Internet bandwidth and speed are increasing and cheaper which was the main reason for offline in the past.
There is also the fact that they don't have to support outdated or multiple versions of a server or distribute updates. The end devices like Google home, Echo and the video fire stick, Chromecast are basic input > send to server > output. That is cheaper to support. Plus you get all the data to improve your product.
When I was young I setup up my first Home Server. Much like an enterprise server. It had share folders, computers backup to it, print server. Though it was the future and in a decade every house would have one. Now a days they don't but they do have stuff like Google Drive and Google Cloud Print and many more options that give you those options in the cloud.
But with smart home devices, you have much finer control over what device you want to control. How can someone do something fine grained like "Switch on external lights" or "show me who is at the door (Alexa does this)" with a clapper?