[jnxx]

> Because the binary is mostly self-contained, it's far easier to install, can work in more environments and less likely to break as time passes and the systems around it change.

That can't be the whole story, otherwise we would not have operating systems, or at least, we would not have anything more than a kernel with nothing on top. There are good reasons for software to be a part of a common system, for example when you want components of the software to integrate and communicate with each other. For example, you probably do not want to log-in to each app again with the same user name.

This is different from a web browser, which, in a way, is an operating system and a platform, and requires relatively little integration with the surrounding system (in these times, often not even a PDF reader). But as a consequence, you have something which is called "inner platform effect", and I think there are few places where this term is more appropriate than in web browsers..