> I didn’t realize it was a paid product, and I’d bet that most of the “complainants” didn’t know either, or weren’t framing it from that perspective in any case.

No need to place or assume blame on the other commentors for not telling you about what was in the page.

> Furthermore, now that it’s being framed as a paid product for this discussion, in my view, I believe they will be more successful in sales of a paid “piece of software” vs a webapp/SaaS/monthly model.

This seems like another thing you are forcing onto "what a webapp must be". Nowhere in making a webapp is it required to use a subscription model.

Another way to think about it is since it's not using desktop integration specific functionality it's already an offline copy of the webapp right now as is with Electron. The app is just effectively browser restricted to that Electron version. Removing that restriction does not relate to changing the offline static site delivery model nor a change in the payment model.

> Likely this was part of their reasoning of going down this path if I had to guess.

No need to keep guessing. As you said the author has already responded to the comments. As I said the page already promises an upcoming web version. There is no need for theoreticals.