Electron-based desktop apps consume 500MB-4GB RAM each, pushing 8-16GB systems into swap thrashing

Applications like Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Notion, and VS Code each bundle a full Chromium browser engine, JavaScript runtime, and security sandbox, consuming 130MB-4GB of RAM per app just to render chat UIs or text editors. Discord alone climbs from under 1GB to 4GB during normal voice chat and streaming use. So what? Knowledge workers who run 3-5 of these apps simultaneously (which is standard in modern remote work) consume 2-8GB of RAM before opening any actual productivity tool. So what? On the 60%+ of business laptops shipping with 8-16GB RAM, this pushes the system into swap, causing visible UI stuttering, 2-5 second input lag, and spinning beach balls / frozen frames during video calls. So what? Employees lose 15-30 minutes per day to application switches, force-quits, and system restarts, which across a 50-person company costs roughly $200K-$500K annually in lost productivity. So what? IT departments face pressure to upgrade hardware fleet sooner (every 2 years instead of 4), doubling device lifecycle costs. So what? Companies are paying a hidden 'Electron tax' on their entire workforce, subsidizing the developer convenience of web-stack desktop apps with employee frustration and hardware budgets. This persists because Electron lets one engineering team ship cross-platform with web skills, reducing app vendor development costs by 50-70%, and the memory cost is externalized onto users rather than borne by the app developer.