Had this been implemented as a web service, half of the crowd would be asking for it to be an open-source program, so they could run it locally, for speed and flexibility and security. It was implemented as an open-source program, so half of the crowd are asking for it to be a web service for usability and convenience and aesthetics.

What I'm seeing is we've got two big platforms (web, CLI) and they both have some distinct advantages and some distinct disadvantages, and it's not easy for either one to cross the chasm and compete with the other one directly. We desperately need a new platform which combines what we like about both of these, and discards what we don't.

Until then, we're just going to keep implementing all end-user functionality twice, because by historical accident developers do most of their work in a DEC VT100 emulator, and end-users won't tolerate that.