Java Web Start was a thing, and had some nice aspects to it. JVM startup time has been a problem, and the UI toolkits maybe had some issues? And of course the early JVMs were notoriously full of security holes, which is something browsers somehow managed to avoid.
But nevertheless I think Java/JAWS got basic stuff still right: run applications directly from network (with auto-updates), have security controlled sandbox, be fully cross-platform and portable, and have useful stuff built-in, and even had the PWA-like thing that you could have desktop shortcuts to JAWS applications.
Regarding startup time, I do wonder what would be the startup time of your typical Electron app on a late 90s-early 00s PC hardware. Somehow I'm imaging JVM might not be that bad in comparison...
As far as I know, security issues were mostly due to security not being too important at the time, but could have been trivially solved. Startup time is similarly a question of what should be optimized for.
I would have liked to see a web built on Java tech.
But nevertheless I think Java/JAWS got basic stuff still right: run applications directly from network (with auto-updates), have security controlled sandbox, be fully cross-platform and portable, and have useful stuff built-in, and even had the PWA-like thing that you could have desktop shortcuts to JAWS applications.
Regarding startup time, I do wonder what would be the startup time of your typical Electron app on a late 90s-early 00s PC hardware. Somehow I'm imaging JVM might not be that bad in comparison...