> If electron worked like the JVM and each app shared a runtime
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your point of view), the JVM world has moved to a model of embedding a JVM with each app, as it can be less problematic for developers (and lets Oracle remove a bunch of subsystems from the JDK, reducing their development and maintenance).
On the up side, though, newer releases of Java provide jlink, so that the JRE can be stripped down to exclude subsystems that aren't used by the app. Also, several JVMs still support class data sharing, so if multiple instances of an app are launched, they can share some common class data.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your point of view), the JVM world has moved to a model of embedding a JVM with each app, as it can be less problematic for developers (and lets Oracle remove a bunch of subsystems from the JDK, reducing their development and maintenance).
On the up side, though, newer releases of Java provide jlink, so that the JRE can be stripped down to exclude subsystems that aren't used by the app. Also, several JVMs still support class data sharing, so if multiple instances of an app are launched, they can share some common class data.