[dvddgld]

I'd say the most basic advantages a web app has for a user are no install, cross platform support and same look and feel across those platforms. These advantages may not seem all that important to the technically inclined but they are massive.

From the producer side: web applications are faster to prototype, develop, publish and monetize than desktop applications. This is also a massive advantage for the average application, cost wins.

The main advantages a native desktop application still has are performance, native look & feel and native feature support.

Purists will argue these native features are super important (they are in particular cases), meanwhile economics will keep pushing towards more web and electron apps. Such is life.

[danieka]

The no install thing is huge when you are working in a more enterprise-y context. Usually the environment is locked down so users can’t install software and it is a huge hassle to roll out updates, it took several weeks where I worked.

Also the users local environment becomes less of a factor.