Perhaps, I doubt the change was as dramatic though, considering it's not just the app itself that underwent transformation but also browsers and the web platform as a whole. But then again we're talking about spreadsheet software.
As the original article shows, it has a long way to go. I mean, Google Sheets is nice for many things, but to even try to replace Excel it needs to increase functionality tenfold - even LibreOffice isn't really there yet after all these years. And packing it with everything would likely make it a worse product for the actually intended Google Sheets audience due to more complexity.
Of all the 100 excel features everybody needs 3-4 - but each needs a different one, so you have to cover all of it to be an acceptable replacement. The original post is one example of such feature that apparently is 'must have' for someone. Database/sql integration for someone else. Solver functionality for yet other people. And so on.
> I mean, Google Sheets is nice for many things, but to even try to replace Excel it needs to increase functionality tenfold - even LibreOffice isn't really there yet after all these years.
Excel is a moving target. Nothing is ever going to "replace" Excel by simply chasing after it and trying to do everything Excel does in the way most comfortable to existing Excel users. Anything that's going to succeed as an Excel replacement will do enough of what Excel does in a way convenient to existing users and offer some compelling features that Excel doesn't have.
And there are always going to be people complaining about any replacement not mimicking some feature in the way they'd most prefer; even after a replacement succeeds -- it happened with WordPerfect users complaining about Word long after Word displaced WordPerfect and acheived dominance.
