It's made building cross-platform desktop applications that are just wrappers for existing web-apps down-right trivial (and no web-dev experience required there.)

And that case applies more often than you'd think. For example, the Spotify app, the Slack app†, the various Facebook Messenger "clients", etc.

† the Slack app is built with http://macgapproject.github.io/, but it's pretty much the same thing.

I don't understand why the slack app exists. Why would I want to run another browser for a chat application?

I use it because my window manager manages windows better than any browser manages tabs.

I've noticed most people in my organisation hate the idea of having work chat in a browser tab. They really liked having a separate app.

It doesn't help that the Windows default (not sure about Macintosh) is to group icons in the task bar, so your separate Browser window for chat makes you two-click to switch between browsing and chat.

> (not sure about Macintosh)

The macOS default is to have no taskbar at all, just a bunch of icons without text or context.

That's true in a way, but it requires basically no non-web dev experience either. It's a different kind of "building".