Windows uninstallers also leave all the trash in %AppData%. There’s no generic way to clean all the folders that a program decided to create. Only some uninstallers ask if you want to delete settings and caches.

Given that, dragging a ready-to-run file (folder) to /Apps symlink is much more convenient than “setting up your system for preparation of initializing of downloading of the installation process starter manager, please wait and press next sometimes”.

That's definitely true for more complex apps, but the fact that you can have the executable and all it's resources in one `.app` file is so much simpler and easier for the everyday user. (Yes I know it's a folder that the OS treats as an application, but to a user it looks like one file)

I go back and forth between Windows/Mac/Linux on the daily (right tool for the right job) and each has some strengths. App packaging is far and away one of Mac's current strengths.

I maintained Nativefier (a now defunct open source project that would package web sites as Electron apps) and the ease of packaging an app was Mac > Windows > Linux.