Isn’t the downside to this then that although you’re using the native browser you’re losing the whole point of Electron which is to have a consistent environment regardless of where it’s run?
Probably. But I don't think that is very problematic.
Browsers have become a lot more standardized. What also helps a lot is that windows is now Chromium edge instead of IE or old edge. Testing tools have also come a long way.
That is a downside. However, it's better to look at Tauri like you might look at React Native. If complete consistency between platforms is required, Tauri still saves you time by letting you write a single codebase and then do a low effort port to each platform. For many applications, Tauri applications will look the same between platforms out of the box.
That's the pitch anyway. People can spend a lot of time on ios vs android in react native applications, so ymmv
Specifically Tauri uses web views that are based on Chrome or Safari on systems, and only if they don't exist by default will it package it, which somehow still ends up smaller than electron. But on Mac and Windows it is tiny, and on Linux it is still surprisingly much smaller than electron, but it is a consistent environment.
Browsers have become a lot more standardized. What also helps a lot is that windows is now Chromium edge instead of IE or old edge. Testing tools have also come a long way.
It's the same as building web-apps.