I don't understand it from the app developers point of view. Having to pay app store cuts over basic card processing fees. I understand the appeal of access to a market, like selling on eBay gets you eyeballs. But once you have a customer using their app, what does the app give you that a PWA doesn't unless you need access to specific sensors / file system access patterns etc?

On one hand, I don’t know why startups make apps. It requires more devs and keeping everything at parity is tough with desktop, iOS, android, mobile web. Seems pragmatic to just simplify and use web.

But on the other hand, I’d love to pay you $0.99 if it meant I could get an ad free version of your little widget and I’m not sure how to do that easily with web

Stop asking me for access to my contacts, microphone, location, or permission to send me 5 kinds of useless notifications.

I can't type on a smartphone. Even as I wrote this, c became a space, the word space started each time with an a, etc.

But on a keyboard I type hella fast.

Now, I also hate creating account after account, having all these applications needing to be installed with ads in them that I can't block or some permissions that I don't think it needs. F that.

This also skips over with some hand waving that a lot of mobile app uses cases simply can’t be replicated with web sites. Take gps or smart home control as two easy of the top of my head example the author skipped too.

Also the fact that people here would rather have their info stored in the cloud vs local on device is interesting.

The web version would be a-ok if it wasn't artificially blocking me from consuming it when on mobile, like Yelp.

Or it's full of annoying popups to use the app, looking at you, Google.

I would be fine having an app for everything if:

1. Phone storage wasn't paid at an absurdly premium price. Sometimes the option with just higher storage may be $300 more.

2. High speed Internet was available cheaply everywhere.

If I'm in a town in the middle of nowhere. I'm not going to use my expensive data plan (because in the US mobile data is extremely expensive compared to EU) To download a 500Mb app that will take 5 minutes to download because the Internet is slow just to pay for parking

We're all here debating the friction of downloading apps versus the convenience of the mobile web, but we might be missing the bigger picture. Both are UI-heavy paradigms designed for humans to click things. In a few years, we won't care if a service has a slick React app or a native iOS build. We’ll just tell our AI agents: 'Book that flight' or 'Fix my billing issue,' and they’ll talk to the APIs directly. The era of 'interfaces for humans' is peaking; the era of 'headless services for agents' is just beginning. Interfaces are becoming a legacy tax.

My Google Chrome app is by far the most used app on my phone. If you catch me at a random moment on my phone, chances are I'm on Chrome.

Sometimes the mobile app experience is better than the mobile browser for me, though. Examples are Twitter, Spotify, Upwork, Google Keep Notes.

If I'm on my computer I don't even download the apps, I just use the browser. It just feels more convenient.

I haven't thought much about why they all feel good on my laptop browser while some apps offer better experience on mobile.

Edit: It's also why I keep procrastinating on getting into mobile app development. I just generally prefer web experience. With some exceptions as already stated here.

There is also the lack of support for bookmarks. I value the ability to reach a part I am interested in quickly.

When Chrome started supporting PWAs you couldn't bookmark the content at all. They seem to have fixed that now.