The web did win on the desktop. New desktop apps are web apps, except for clients to sync your files with a cloud service. The popular desktop apps all predate the rise of the web.

Also, having books and movies stuck in your amazon or apple account is convenient for consumption, but horrible for creation. You can't DO anything with that content. I've wanted to extract interesting stuff from books I own before and was forced to make screengrabs. If you don't understand what's wrong with the media rental model, go read "the right to read" by stallman.