Wrong point. Nothing wrong with browser based clients. Even if they build some desktop client, by the time google (or anyone) does that compatibility Microsoft will change their formats. MS even removed their apps from ChromeOS to make it so. The issue is you can't fix MS. regulators are just too rich to care.
It is even the same as Office for Mac is not 100% compatible with office for windows (or so called CoPilot AI whatever)
It is so rare. Often people want to self-justify their complex, painful homesetup for this kind of rare thing. If any of the cloud like Google was that bad with lost accounts then it would get less popular eventually.
Breaking nextcloud or failing a disk or lost phone is more likely. (Nitpick - Yes, most people have SIM based 2FA - so no problem with lost SIM - and most people are not >100K paid HN bros - that travel constantly around the world. so Google is good.).
It is not that any employee can just purchase things in academia (at least in 3 different countries I worked at). Most money and purchasing power, approvals go to official-administrators (even if Professors take efforts to apply and receive grants). Spending is highly regulated. There were times I was denied buying RHEL telling me to use a 'free linux'. There is a wide belief (among official-administrators) Linux is free so paying for it is the employee wasting money. To even encourage Dell's linux server offerings I once purchased a few preinstalled RHEL devices but was later asked why not use free ones (or the windows dell offerings as they were strangely cheaper - thanks to bloatware).
At the same if you say you need to buy a windows server or zoom license this will be approved as these people know that it is not free. Their society is conditioned in this way.
In the rare case if this was approved, usually there are external auditors that analyse spent money and come back at you for not using free linux.
Ideally Canonical and RedHat (via IBM) goes to these administrators (or meetings in Ministry of Education) and advise them that making software is $$.
Lets be honest. Usually people used to make fun of me as an ex-Indian living in the West telling that the west is doomed because of Iraq, Bush, Trump etc.
Schadenfreude: it seems India are ready to dig themselves into a hole. This should benefit the West on the long run.
It is even the same as Office for Mac is not 100% compatible with office for windows (or so called CoPilot AI whatever)