Is Electron really that bad?

They should rebrand to positron and it will instantly be more positive

Before Electron shovelware we had Java-based shovelware with horrifying non-native-looking Swing UIs and codebases full of unnecessary abstractions blindly copied from a textbook.

I feel like PWAs and Native WebViews should have taken over from Electron, but for some reason neither has improved enough to make that a reality. It's just weird to have like 50 chromiums on my machine, all of them using up a bunch of RAM and disk space that they don't really need to. I do agree fully though with the idea that bad devs make bad apps, not the frameworks

Valve made proton, github made electron, i wonder who wi use the name neutron

Quick correction here — Arc isn't Electron, it uses Chromium embedded framework (CEF). Arc renders everything but the browser in native Swift code, and integrates with CEF through its API.

The article in the video states that "Electron is a cancer", essentially because, "duplication is becoming a significant performance drain." It is absolutely correct, and you having 3-4 copies of Electron open in your apps doesn't disprove that. Strangely, your list of points doesn't include this. Electron makes a simple Hello World app 180MB. Now imagine a hypothetical world where lazy devs ship apps in Electron, so you have a calendar in Electron, email in Electron, todo list in Electron, Windows Explorer in Electron, and before you know it you got half your RAM eaten up by Chromium instances.

Around 2005/2006 as a webdev I asked on random C/C++ internet forums why can't we build GUIs with HTML/CSS, they felt insulted and asked me to never ask stupid questions like that anymore.

In my experience, it's always companies trying to ship products as cheaply and quickly as possible that turn to Electron or React Native. Their timelines are unrealistic, or the team consists of underpaid developers with little motivation, many juggling a second job just to make ends meet. That’s why we see so many Electron and React Native apps with poor performance. I work at an agency/manpower company, and you wouldn’t believe the corners that get cut just to meet deadlines while maximising profits and the clients we work with are not small businesses or startups, these are major international companies.

Not native feeling: is it too much to ask, that just scrolling feels the same in all applications, especially on mobile?

Proton lets you play Windows games on Linux, Electron lets you play web apps on desktop, what do Neutrons do for us?