Registration/Login required(I'll take the installation over that in many cases)

No properly working (or even implemented) keyboard shortcuts; I just tried, Google Sheets tells me to use Ctrl+C etc. but it doesn't do anything, and what's even worse is that the menu item for "insert" doesn't do anything either because Google wants to force me to use the dysfunctional keybinding...thanks I guess

Usually no right click + context menu

Input lag

No offline use possible(remember all the MS/Cloudflare/AWS etc. outages?)

Less control over data, privacy issues

I understand the sentiment, but some of your points are simply not true. Ctrl+C works fine last time I tested GDocs (inc sheets). It also have offline support, and supports right clicking? Input lag is very dependant on the actual application and how it's made AFAIK, albeit it might be more difficult to do it right using web tech. That leaves two arguments (basically privacy arguments). That is not it related to web tech. For example, Adobe CC more or less requires the same login and authentication requirements as other web applications. Some web applications does not require login (pixlr for example). Many desktop applications phone home as well and gather even more information about you and your computer.

Web tech is not the problem in itself - it's how it's used and deployed that can be a problem (like the ads/data "freemium" business model some use BFF which a _few_ users dislike).

I thought we were better than arguing with false arguments and pointing fingers at the wrong problem - well, I guess "hoped" (in a naive sense) is actually more accurate...

> Ctrl+C works fine last time I tested GDocs

Well, it didn't work when I wrote my comment, sorry that it seems to be inconsistent on my setup. Regardless it is still very questionable of Google to make the "insert" menu item do absolutely nothing but show a popup dialogue telling you to use Ctrl-V. It is annoying and comes across as a bit condescending, like some engineer at Google wanted to teach the noobs how it's done properly.

> It also have offline support, and supports right clicking?

I was talking about web apps in general, not just Google. Many web apps don't have any context menu or shortcuts, you have to move the mouse back and forth all the time for the simplest steps.

And what's even worse is that many JS-loaded websites mess with the UI so much that you can't open links in new tabs anymore. I don't even want to know how that can be done unintentionally.

> Adobe CC more or less requires the same login and authentication requirements as other web applications.

You are right there, maybe I conflated the web app trend with the rising amount of user-unfriendly software design.

The insert menu tells you to use the shortcut because browser restrictions make accessing/modifying the clipboard without doing so difficult.

To be fair, Google apps are extreme outliers in SaaS, especially offline support.

It's an open source tool that you can self host, having none of the problems, or add to your application and when you're doing that, all of what you said already applies.

But yeah, I get why you prefer native programs - I do as well. But the web ones have their place too.

Btw context menu is in google sheets for a long time - I wanted to say a decade, but it might be a little less.

> use Ctrl+C etc. but it doesn't do anything

Did you set clipboard events to false in about:config?

Probably. After all, if you don't set that, lots of sites will do stupid things like prevent you from copying, or pasting into certain fields.

But it will break things like Google Sheets.

More importantly (for Google sheets):

Easy to share

No need to backup

Cross platform (works on Linux)

> No need to backup

You trust Google etc. to never ban your account for any reason, or to stay available 100% of the time without outages?

And Google uses some badly tuned and not understandable by humans, and also constantly changing, machine learning algorithm to decide to serve you or not.

When something goes wrong with this, you have a a fairly small chance that you can reach a human to override, but it will be an overworked underpaid contractor somewhere and your chances will be poor.

If you talk long term (decades), it is quite possible that Google falls out of favor and becomes legacy, like Myspace, with not making that much money anymore. We all know what happened to the Myspace data, they just deleted most of it at some point.

Essentially it's a lottery with your data.

Now a badly maintained hard disk is a data lottery too, but it's not clear to me the chances to retain are that much worse than Google's.

I think it's foolish to shoot down advantages in practicality and fluency of use on the basis of a decades long event for the vast vast majority of use cases. My company hasn't been around for decades and we don't use any particular spreadsheet outside of a select few for more than a couple months at a time. You'd lose all credibility arguing against G-suite on the basis of losing your data/getting your enterprise google account banned, because it would cost the business so much time and confusion relative to the ease of cloud solution.

I've already had disks fail, never had an issue with Google Docs being down, and if it happens I think it will have been worth it.

You trust your hard drive to never fail during crunch time, or Jane Doe in accounting to not lose the flash drive that gets shared around the office every quarter?

I'd take "generally highly available" vs "trusting my local copy" almost all the time. And as for using something like a Git'd Excel document: most people won't do that, and Github can go down, too.

Just because Google Drive isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not better/easier/more user friendly than what has been the standard for years.

You need to back up your hard drive too.

The point is that you always need to back up. Sure, if you pay Google you can probably rely on them. But it is still best to backup anyways.

It's not an either-or. My argument was for making backups, not cloud vs. local storage.

> Don't leave the browser

For someone saying that they don't like browser-based apps, how is this an advantage? They're presumably not in a browser in the first place.