What do you think Joe Sixpack runs on his computer these days? There are tons of people out there who do nothing but browse websites and use the "apps" as provided on those sites. They have no use for native Windows apps nor all the extra baggage that comes with it.
That's a stupid over-generalization. There's always one shitty app you need for some weird use case which is not in the official stores. And to rule that out 100% by purchasing a chromebook is a hassle people don't want to worry about.
Yeah, most people shouldn't need more, but you're right. For example, to update the maps in our minivan's navigation system, I need to install some (crappy) Windows-only desktop application, "Garmin Express."
