I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss. It's true you see it a lot more on the cloud side of things. I've found its really useful in any situations where I want to capture the state of the OS along with the program. A good example is creating a CI environment that can be easily reproduced on a developers machine. It cuts out a lot of back and forth of "it works on my machine" when you are just a docker build/docker run away from having a local test image that is identical to whats run in CI. Some of the project I mentioned in the above post were very much not "web" projects. I've also seen it as a method to share difficult to set up development environments like you sometimes see in embedded development.

I'm not alone in picking the word "fundamental". In the same survey that is article is based on, Docker was the #1 "other tool" for professional devs. SO had this to say about it: "Last year we saw Git as a fundamental tool to being a developer. This year it appears that Docker is becoming a similar fundamental tool for Professional Developers, increasing from 55% to 69%." I think the comparison works too. Git isn't the best tool for everyone, but is extremely common and a sound default. Docker also isn't the best tool for everyone, but isn't far off on being as ubiquitous.

I’d make that “cloud” development. The web is a part of it — a big part, but just a part.

It’s more effort to deploy docker then to use App Services in Azure. Fortunately no need for a container environment. It adds an unnecessary complexity.

Docker is used everywhere. Containers allow fluent use of any CLI tool in crossplatform way. No need to bang your head into the wall when fixing your dependencies.