I can't quite yet make a native, cross-OS app I can deploy by clicking a link and that anyone will trust not to eat their computer just by running it. It's also a lot more work to implement things like networking.
Only nobody likes Java desktop applications. Including me, and I've programmed professionally in the language since 1998.
And they are non starters for demanding multimedia work, which is some of the most interesting stuff you want to do in the desktop as opposed as a web app.
.NET feels better (because MS didn't screw up as much, as Java did with the overengineered uncanny valley mess that is Swing), but it's not cross platform.
So, still, not comparable to deploying in the browser sandbox.
> So, still, not comparable to deploying in the browser sandbox.
That much is true, I haven't yet used so brain damaged set of programming tools as the HTML/JavaScript/CSS gimmick required to make the so called web applications in all browser versions required by our customers.
Click once deployment for .NET applications as another example.