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>I totally agree with the author's points, however, I can't understand why people run "apps" for things like WhatsApp (and Slack) when they run just fine in a browser tab.

On macOS, you get native notifications, a bright red dot on the app icon for notifications, and a separate window from your browser. Lastly, the app might optimize for native macOS APIs strategically.



Web notifications are a thing, and Whatsapp could popout a window without browser chrome from a webpage


None of those are worth a few gigabytes of memory and disk space to me.


It is to some people - like me. Electron gives us that option at a low cost to the developers. You can use the web version. I will use the desktop version. :)


Perhaps at a higher cost to end users.


A lower cost actually to end users typically.


Cost can be quantified on many levels, including performance and quality.


Hence, I said "typically".


Then "typically" it comes at the cost of performance and quality.


And a lower cost, which consumers have chosen. Quality is debatable.




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