The point is not one anecdote alone. It's the trend my example highlights. IME it's hard to buy a feature rich device without needing to run more and more electron apps. Or have a tech job without such apps. This cannot scale to everything even if physics weren't standing in the way of significant die shrinks.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that if I configure the device to do 'hardware' assignment then it's not as bad a problem. (Yet at the cost of some flexibility.) So it suggests that the software level bindings are being loaded through this Electron abomination.

I don’t see how you can call it a “trend” when I can’t think of a single mainstream device with such a requirement.

What's a high quality programmable gaming mouse that doesn't require an app to manage it?

Core functionality for all these devices will work perfectly well without an app.

For functionality that does need additional configuration (like extra buttons, RGB colors), you will have to install a companion app and use it once.

There's no case where a peripheral will be non-functional unless a heavy electron app is permanently running alongside it, as the parent comment alleged. If there is, it is absolutely not the standard.