From a user's perspective, it's maybe a bit more nuanced... I'm tired of websites trying to get around my adblocker, and everyone attempting to enable desktop notifications, for example. If I'm trying to read someone's document they've published, I'd like it to just be a document, thanks. But, increasingly, "Paradigm 2" webapps like Spotify and Google docs are as good or better than "rich" desktop apps.
Also agreed, many web apps these days are as good or better than desktop. I actually have worked and am working on applications that replace their desktop counterparts. They're practically easier to scale, tend to have tooling to handle window sizes better, customization is easier and imho just nicer to write against. Better still if you don't have to support legacy browsers. Most browsers today are supporting modules and async import. Still using Webpack and Babel for JSX, but really close to a point where I'd just assume write for esm and have a server-side translation for JSX on demand (cached).
The need to serve Paradigm 2 existed all over the place in the plain html days.
It’s just instead of having standards-based languages for Paradigm 2, we used to embed janky Flash SWFs and Java applets, were dependent on single vendors to patch zero-days in closed source code, and had to pay hundreds of dollars for licenses for developer tools.
Today’s Paradigm 2 now has multiple competing implementations, open standards, and powerful DOM inspectors in almost every web browser to tear apart any modern Paradigm 2 app you come across.
I think today’s Paradigm 2 gives more power to users than the Paradigm 2 of the past :)