As many others have mentioned here, the backwards incentive structure is absolutely part of the problem -- i.e. businesses don't care to invest the time and money in making things efficient and performant, because the goal is to get something out the door as quickly as possible.

And, the fact that software can be continuously updated in the field makes it inherently different than other fields, which have to try to get something “right” the first time.

But I also think that we have a responsibility as engineers not to thrust technology out into the world without considering its impact, and that includes things like Electron. At its inception, I'm sure it was a hilarious and insane tech demo, but that's all it ever should have been.

The sad fact is that Electron solves a real problem, though, which is that developing per-platform native apps takes an enormous amount of effort. To me, it's a huge failing of the software world that we've not yet provided an alternative that's just as easy to deploy as Electron, if not easier, but with performance and efficiency built in from the start.