[mekoka]

So, you start with the idea that people prefer making web apps essentially because "money". Then conclude that making desktop apps will eventually go back to be the favorite, because they'll become as easy to make as web apps. Doesn't that imply that ease of development, distribution, and maintenance are (the?) current major factors?

The economics of web apps is a pretty straight line and may not point to a particular cupid trend. If you make a web app and want to serve it, someone has to foot the bill (bandwidth, storage, security, maintenance, etc). Also, people will keep asking for improvements and fixes. If you want to offer nicer things, you may want to hire a UI/UX dev. If the app becomes popular, at some point you'll have no choice than to generate some income. It means that you can finance the app through either donations (which you can pull off if you're super popular, like Lichess), ads (if you're reasonably popular, like Photopea), or subscriptions (if you're in a niche, like many of the one-person SaaS out there).

Also, your target audience may express its preference for one monetization model over others. If you build a web competitor to the Salesforce suit, you might be surprised to see many of your prospective users frown when they ask you how much it costs and you reply "donations".