I can't quite get this point. From my perspective software engineers love/adore electron applications.
Look at VScode as the example:
- electron based javascript application
- telemetry included
- proprietary build with "open core"
It is literally the most popular code editor right now (p.s. I don't use it). Why as a tech savvy user you will use something you don't like for 5-10 hours each day to do your work?
Only answer I can see that electron is not an issue here.
That is, if JetBrains had made JS plugins first class citizens of their products, possibly VS Code wouldn't be as popular as it is.
Also, there's an expectation that an IDE will be somewhat heavyweight. I don't mind if VSCode or IntelliJ grabs a few gigs or RAM, because I live inside those applications and depend on the features they provide.
What I don't want or need is Yet Another Electron Based Markdown Editor that gobbles up half my laptop's memory so that I can edit a hundred line text document.
After taking time to learn my tools I can't use vscode anymore because of how inefficient and restrictive it is now for my workflow. I mainly prefer tools that can last a lifetime and time you've investend now can yeld much better results across several decades of usage.
Here is short list of tools I can't live without: magit, org-mode, undo-tree (actualy it was a feature request and vscode team said it's too compticated for broad audience), ability to hack your code editor as you wish. Ability to work all day without touching a mouse once.
I stopped using VS Code because of the billions of files it ships with (does anyone remember DLLs these days or what?) and its performance and debugging capabilities were very disappointing.
You have to consider the costs of building an app native for each platform vs a cross platform framework built with javascript. Single javascript code base for all platforms is a lot cheaper.
I am pretty sure that all of these giant companies releasing garbage Electron apps have a bigger budget than the budget on the 2 people (us!) that wrote what we wrote in 2.5 years.
When I see how abysmal apps like Skype and Slack are, I despair. Colossal amounts of RAM and simply displaying text and pictures.
It might be more convenient for the developer to write in the first language they learned but it is producing giant bloated applications. More CPU cycles, more allocations, more power consumed, shorter battery life on mobile devices (laptops), more charging of devices, more fossil fuels burned.
You care about delivering a high quality and high performance application, big corps just want to sell a product.
Also, just because they have a bigger budget doesn't mean they are all about spending it, they probably want to squeeze it as much as they can.
The people who build slow electron apps would have built slow native apps, if they could build one.