I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

I think you are missing a step in your conclusion there. The reason users aren't as robust in organizing where their files come is because file browsing on phones isn't as robust.

On the android side the file browser that comes with the phone (if any) is bare bones. This combined with various sandboxing can make it pretty annoying to know exactly where your files end up.

Then there is the fact that the small UI on phones simply isn't all that great for browsing a large list of files.

So, putting it squarely on users isn't correct imho.

Given that the tool they made is still alive and well more than 10 years down the road - they made a right call.

Every time I take a stab at a web gui app, I’m daunted.

The toolkits, the apparently billions of dependencies, the vastly complicated build processes.

I tried again recently. HTML file and a separate JS file. Some SVG elements with a click handler.

I had mouse in and mouse out logic, and that worked great. But for some reason the click handler did not.

I tried it in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. It worked in Firefox. It did not work in Safari, it did not work in Chrome.

Turns out in Safari, my Ad Blocker was hijacking my click handler. Chrome, still not sure what’s happening there.

But I projected what happened in Safari out to the wild. “Can’t get your app to work.” Except instead of a 50 line experiment, it’s a gazillion lines of God knows what 87 levels removed from whatever code I actually wrote.

Cross browser Hell. It’s supposed to be a sandbox only to find out the cat got there first.

And I give up. Again. It’s not my livelihood. It’s a hobby. I encountered these quickly enough to thwart me before I’ve actually invested any real time. Like starting out on a vacation and you have a flat tire and the drain plug pops out before you get out of town. Maybe there’s a cosmic message here.

And I feel stupid. Obviously folks manage, but I keep getting knocked down and kicked.

The idea of pain free distribution via a PWA is really alluring. I’d like it to work. But it seems every time I get back up, the lights go out again and the corners of the cabinets seek my head.

But then I think back to my rock climbing days, a friend used to climb in shorts. And I asked didn’t it hurt when he used his knees? He answered “it’s not supposed to hurt?”

Is it supposed to hurt?

Browser-based software and desktop applications share some overlap but as the 15 years since the article have shown, that overlap isn't complete or even overly substantial (and thus desktop applications are as prevalent as ever). Just as a hammer and a nailgun are both tools that allow us to effectively build a structure, they both have their niches, benefits, and drawbacks. To pretend otherwise is simply juvenile and shortsighted.

To be fair, that's one of the reasons why libraries like jQuery and React exist: to smooth over the difference between browsers.

Even today, big chunk of React is masking the subtle differences in event handling and other things. And whilst it forces you into a paradigm, I've never had a bug caused by the internals of React that I've had to dig into. But maybe I'm lucky or only do simple stuff?

As to it hurting, I guess I'd say, use the protective equipment! Sure, it can be bulky and awkward occasionally, but it works and it's often better than the alternatives.