Web apps can ask for your location or microphone the same way native apps can. Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either platform, so to say that’s a negative for native apps is odd.
The biggest downside of native apps is you can’t customize them with extensions or user styles like you can with websites.
Apps break often. They need a lot of support. Everything must be constantly updated. You never know when Samsung or Apple will push an update that breaks things because of some esoteric policy shift or setting change.
But the web? If you do it right, maintenence is much easier. If things do break: users can try different browsers or devices to get around instead of being bricked.
I can't be the only one who _never _ updates software on my phone until I absolutely have to. Everything is so brittle. I'm sick of being gaslit that apps make that better. Despite it's own horrible implementations, the web is far more stable.
Eh, I'll argue this isn't as true as you think. Browsers are constantly updated these days and have their own fun things that break or mess with experiences.
But that's not the biggest issue with browsers, at least on the PC, it's that the average user seems completely incapable of keeping mal/adware off their device. For those users the app world is an escape from the hell they were in.
For me as a power user apps suck. But they became popular quickly for a reason.
That link was posted two days ago, but it's not unusual news. Phone apps are not an escape from mal/adware.