They "love apps" because apple and android have spent billions to break their mental models and convince them that "you use apps to do things on your phone". Literally. That's the extent of most people's understanding.

So, sure, they "want" apps in the same sense that early internet users "wanted" AOL because in their minds AOL and the internet were indistinguishable. But actual free choice requires an understanding of the choices.

- this isn't a one-off use, I don't want an app to pay parking meter once and never use it again.

- it's an app and not a WebView pretending to be native

- it's native and not react-wanna-be-native

- you know how to make an app

I have to use this app to open a parcel locker and every time I launch it I have to wait for "downloading bundle". It's probably the easiest kind of app to make and yet somehow they made it worse then a website.

What they care about:

- Does it do what I need it to

- Can I access it easily

- Is it easy to navigate

- Does it work or is it buggy

- Is it slow

- Does it abuse notifications

- Is it prompting me to log in all the time

- Are there too many ads

- Can I use it on any device I have

- Does it complain about updating constantly

I don't think any of those actually has to do with being a website. The problem is that web browsers and websites didn't get a not-stupid UI for phones faster than the phone vendors could funnel everyone into their walled garden. Remember "click here for mobile" and having to develop two web interfaces? And half the time functions would be missing on one side?

Why do people like apps? Because they can put it on their home screen, they can open the app list and pick from there, they are searchable in a canonical repository, which is kind of like googling for the website but still.

Login flows are simpler and persist better, with local storage etc.

Multiple apps can be switched between by just moving between the currently opened apps, while website tabs appear inside the browser only and are mixed with many other unrelated browsing tabs, making it harder to find.

I guess fundamentally all of these could be supported with browsers. But in the end, Google and Apple don't want to make bookmarks and independent persistent "browser windows" easier.

I'm not a heavy user of those but the result of PWAs has always been an icon that's handled by the OS like if it was any other native app, and when opened it just behaves like the web browser in kiosk mode just for that website.

> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”

> Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.

End users, for the most part don't know what they want. They take when makes sense to them. To end users apps are easy. To us, a URL is easy.

> But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.

Yup!! And we get sucked into this vortex at times. Good post btw.

I had a similar experience. It was mostly lower- and middle-managers who needed to put their mark on something visible.

I responded with, "Tell me what features you want the app to have that the web site doesn't; or is this a vanity project?" The "vanity project" line is what made people re-think what they were asking.

When that didn't work, I pointed out that they'd have to hire an entire new team to do the app, and gave them a high six-figure number to accomplish what they wanted.† That always worked.

† For a number of regulatory and political reasons, we cannot offshore for cheap.