Umm, I think you are just in a bit of a bubble with regards to a lot of jobs, there are tons of people who do useful work that just use a browser. Off the top of my head, just in my company the customer service and shipping staff are entirely browser based.
Finance is mostly browser based in many orgs, and for people who are all-in on Google docs it's 100% browser based. Service companies such as contractors seem to have transitioned to cloud platforms accessed off of a browser or Android app that is essentially just a webview.
Ironically, tech companies are behind the curve in regards to having a higher proportion of users like devs and designers that need applications that aren't browser based.
My comment was a bit inflammatory, of course it isn't useless work, but that stems from consultants that often naively suggest we should move to the cloud. But that isn't really sound advice and just far from reality. As I said, this is producing industry, so perhaps an edge case for better of worse.
Our R&D and production probably cannot ever move completely to the browser. Security restrictions of browsers are focused on being safe on the net, so interactivity is limited and overall it is often impractical.
And since we have at least hybrid environments, we often compare desktop usage with purely cloud approaches and the desktop seem to mostly win for productivity. And I bet this would be the case for many other companies too.
Sure, if you are purely service based, it can work. But even our customer service has a workshops with numerous devices measuring materials in all kinds of way. You cannot really connect them to a browser. Or you could, but then it is extreme impractical again.
Or logistics. Scanning pallets, registering wares, nothing here is browser based. It really seems to be the word, excel crowd that can do it and maybe your erp is a cloud solution.
I do software development. Theoretically I could develop in the cloud too for the most part but I would also severely hate it. And even if I restrict myself to the Microsoft part, it also is a bit unreliable.
I use desktop apps for certain things--mostly multimedia and dev. But I spend the majority of my time in a browser. I mostly don't even use my office because the 10-year old laptop in my kitchen works fine for web-based work, don't need a second monitor for many tasks, and the room is lighter and airier.
Finance is mostly browser based in many orgs, and for people who are all-in on Google docs it's 100% browser based. Service companies such as contractors seem to have transitioned to cloud platforms accessed off of a browser or Android app that is essentially just a webview.
Ironically, tech companies are behind the curve in regards to having a higher proportion of users like devs and designers that need applications that aren't browser based.