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I think web technologies have gone too far and too mature. The alternatives are not as much portable and approachable for some applications.

For instance, Win32 API/Swift UI/GTK would be the surface area for a cross platform application. I am not counting Qt/wxWdigets. You can tell a Qt application from a mile away.

And making an application look identical on all platforms is downright impossible. There would be noticeable differences.

An application should not look identical on all platforms. It should instead follow the conventions of the platform.

Never understood this. I own Windows and Mac computers, Apple iPad and Android phone, and annoyed everytime software just doesn't look the same when I switch between platforms. Why must everything look different? That's why I love the web and web applications.

Yes, please.

Incidentally, Grist runs on the desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux), see https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-electron.

… using web technologies (it’s an Electron app).