No actual user cares how their messaging application is made. If it's a progressive webapp or a native app, and the actual experience can be the same, then it really doesn't matter.
> AIM, ICQ, IRC, and Yahoo Messenger all used local clients.
A webapp with a service worker is a local client. And a lot of people use Whatsapp Web, or Facebook Messenger's web site. I know I do.
I think users do care. I care that I can't close my browser without missing messages. I dislike that Electron apps use half my RAM.
If by "don't care" you mean "don't care enough to abandon a platform their friends are on" then I guess I agree. But all you've proven is that network effects matter.
but people do want their messaging application to run in a browser now.
People don't want something until it happens and they see it and say hey that's what I want, unless you are going off the assumption that people are sheeple and can be made to want messaging applications in the browser because they have been told to want it somehow.
Really? Have they been given an alternative? Not an electron app, a real desktop alternative, that syncs with the mobile native client and gives an in-desktop experience.
Nobody did that, ever. It's simpler and cheaper to ship an in-browser solution, so everyone does that, that's all.
