Can you imagine the popularity of a UI component driven version of this (along the lines of hypercard I guess), if web-based? I suspect the market for that would be MUCH bigger.
What do you mean by "UI component driven version of this" exactly? Like this, but to build UI components somehow?
FWIW, there are plenty of graph-based dev tools, especially in the data science & ML world, and they seem to only fit the nerdiest of audiences (like mine!) ; not very practical for most people.
Why would web-based ensure a much bigger market? If you have a one-click installation process, then a desktop app seems much more appropriate than a web page for a programming / data analysis tool.