[rafterydj]

Not a product manager but I habitually try to play devil's advocate as one. I think it's popularity, full stop. You _could_ vibe code a native app no problem - but then you're targeting one set of hardware. If you're already just vibing it, why not make something that will work cross-platform while you're at it? And if an LLM is prompted with that, they'll usually go with the popular choice: web app on Electron.

[Eric_WVGG]

Okay, but Windows isn't cross-platform.

Adobe is but they have a ginormous multi-decade codebase that mastered cross-platform UI ages, an LLM coding assistant ought to be able to "add a range input here using our standard UI library" much more easily than "rebuild this with Electron."

1Password at least has a decent excuse for a rotten decision.

[bluGill]

There are plenty of cross platform options. I write with Qt for example.

[rafterydj]

Yes but Qt comes with the drawbacks of being tied to Qt.

With Electron + React, you'd be able to rip out any components you need and place them in other web apps. The browser is (psychologically) avoiding vendor dependencies to a greater degree than other options.

[bluGill]

You are tied to web and react. You can substitute react for something else (I suppose) but still tied to that.

I know of a few other cross platform toolkits if you don't like Qt, but in all cases you quickly become tied to it.