zlacker

>>foxfir+(OP)
Don’t agree, but to each their own. The native app experience for every app noted in the article is better and smoother than the mobile web version, in my opinion. Lots of people hate Electron apps, which suggests to me that my preference for native apps isn’t unique.

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.

>>markba+P3
The author is not contesting that the app experience is better. Yeah, the web experience is worse -- because the product people are treating the entire web presence as a _marketing surface_ for the app. So, the web version is basically an ad for the app. This is true of Reddit, Yelp, and others. How could it not be worse?

It's too bad because it's not like the web is incapable of providing a beautiful ux for those products. But then so why do you think these companies employ massive teams of devs, for Android, and then again for iOS, reimplementing their functionality on every platform? All that to provide you with that sweet extra smooth native "feel", 2% nicer than the web could do? No, it's not for you...

>>montro+z9
> No, it's not for you...

This is key. Companies pushing apps is not for your benefit. It's so they can further monetize you right under your nose and with your full permission by accepting their EULA. This is just a furtherance of the if you don't pay for the product you are the product.

>>dylan6+qa
Companies still have to provide value for them to attract users. It's cynical to only look at the value the company gets and ignoring the value users and advertisers get.

>>charci+Hc
I argue that this decade shows you do not have to provide value. You capture the market yester-decade and then you can hold the users hostage as you do any and everything to appeal to shareholders and advertisers.

This is indeed a short term strategy, but tech companies right now are thinking very short term.

>>johnny+sf
How do you hold users hostage without providing them value?

>>charci+Fk
Monopoly, network effect

>>arthur+AL
Like the other posters you are giving reasons why people will not switch to alternatives, but you are failing to argue why people are stuck using an app that provides no value.

>>charci+W01
for one, it's a nice little icon on the desktop of their device. you click it, and it launches the very thing you are looking to do. a browser means you have to click to open the browser. then you have to type the specific URL which is already something way more demanding than clicking the single icon even if they do remember the URL.

for another, devs are definitely making the web experience subpar which has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. most websites are just adverts for their apps if they function at all any more. loading a website on mobile is even worse than desktop as they pester you with "it's better in the app" pop ups.

people find browsing an app store much easier than browsing the web. in fact, do people browse the web at all any more. search is shit now, so discovery by search is not what it used to be. click through from search is also plummeting as "search assistant" type responses means no reason to click through to sites.

how many more reasons do you need?

>>dylan6+Gl1
>how many more reasons do you need?

One. Because I don't believe one exists. The reasons you gave of it looking nice and accomplishing something the user wants to do provide value to the user.