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by jorisw10 hours ago |
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upvoteby pluralmonad9 hours ago|
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The people deciding between delivering their payload via app or web page. Engagement hacking is not something we have to guess that ad companies want.
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upvoteby Gander57399 hours ago|
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The problem is, I tnink, that most people actually prefer apps over websites - even just a wrapper - for whatever reason.
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upvoteby jorisw9 hours ago|
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Possible reasons:

- No waiting for a page to load

- Home screen access (most don't know about bookmarking web apps)

- Discovery (where do you go to find PWAs?)

- Features (native apps have access to more platform APIs)

- Absence of browser chrome (more immersive UX), though on iOS the chrome can be removed from PWAs once bookmarked, using meta tags

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upvoteby criddell8 hours ago|
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Those are all pretty good. Some other reasons:

- well written apps use less memory, battery, and bandwidth

- security: apps go through at least some review while a web app could change with every reload

- scripting: apps often expose more functionality to Apple Shortcuts

- accessibility: the system accessibility features seem to work better with apps

- UI/UX: the best native apps are always going to be more responsive and feel better than the best web apps

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upvoteby ashu14618 hours ago|
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In most of the cases, web apps are also much slower as well and the UX is also sub par.
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upvoteby jorisw9 hours ago|
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Ad companies now. Just one sentence earlier you said it's people 'delivering their payload'.
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upvoteby pluralmonad9 hours ago|
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Yes, ad (supported) companies are a large subset of the former. I am not sure what point you are attempting to make.
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upvoteby jorisw9 hours ago|
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Ad supported apps are not necessarily from ad companies.

The point I'm trying to make that these ever-prevalent 'they just want' remarks are superficial, uninformed, overly broad, and vague, to the point of having no point.

There are many benefits to native apps over web apps on mobile devices, depending on the use case. A conspiracy against the people need not be part of every developer's choice to utilize the native platform and associated app store for distribution.

I know there's lots of horrible companies out there (hi Meta!) who will drive you to their native apps just for performance of ads and 'engagement'. This doesn't justify the conspiracy thinking getting applied to native apps as a whole.

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upvoteby pluralmonad8 hours ago|
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Ad tech comes with a whole bundle of mal-incentives, like engagement hacking. If you are supported by ad revenue then your primary job is to get your users to look at ads. That's an ad company, for our purposes here.
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upvoteby pjc509 hours ago|
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Specific example would be Reddit.
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upvoteby jorisw9 hours ago|
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Reddit, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, sure.

All examples of first party social media clients.

A minority of native app developers, I'm willing to bet.

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upvoteby pjc509 hours ago|
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Probably a statistical paradox where most developers aren't doing mass surveillance, but most app installs are, because the number of users for apps follows a power law distribution.
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upvoteby datakan9 hours ago|
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The developer of the apps obviously.
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upvoteby snapcaster9 hours ago|
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Why this gaslighting? obviously the massive companies with vested interest in monetizing your attention and data
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upvoteby jorisw9 hours ago|
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Nice and vague. Hard to dispute.

Simple fact is that people love to project evil incentives onto entities they don't even bother defining.

Not every native app developer is a 'massive company' with a 'vested interest' (what does that even mean) in monetizing your attention and data.

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