[lawnchair_larry]

Most people don't. Most people are annoyed by their browser bugging them to make decisions for things they don't care about or need. Notifications from browsers or web pages is clearly a poor fit, UX wise.

[andybak]

Lack of notifications rules out an entire class of potential applications.

We can bicker about implementation but saying "web apps don't need notifications" is as nonsensical as saying "desktop apps don't need notifications".