The Web is basically just a runtime you don't have to host your files on a server if you don't want. You can distribute them via CDs if you prefer. Also you can use Service Workers now.
That said monetisation all depends on the product not the medium. Just look at Minecraft. It didn't use ads or microtransactions and yet it was run from a Java applet in a browser.
Framerates aren't the same, memory usage isn't the same, and you can't easily tweak these things once they've come out the other end. The web _isn't_ just a runtime. It's abstracted like that, but browsers are glorified HTML renders with JavaScript bindings, event handling, and sound and video playback to game developers.
HN has a subset of the community constantly raving about these things for game developers, but where are the game developers actually praising these things? I don't know of any, personally. We're all too busy with desktop games.
[0] Mind you, said order of magnitude applies to uncapped framerate.
Minecraft also notoriously performs terrible. Given what Minecraft is sure that might work for Minecraft. It wouldn't work for an AAA game.