The technical details may differ between if my data is stored on an SSD I'm accessing locally that I booted from, vs if my data is stored in the cloud and I'm accessing it via a web browser, but at the end of the day, I have access to my files. The technical differences have many practical ramifications (eg disk speed), but they are sufficiently practically equivalent for many different use cases. We see this with Chromebooks, where they will never be a full replacement for every windows machine. There is a large reason they've gained marketshare, however.
