Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, apps took off before nice PWAs that masquerade as apps were a thing. The app store was already thriving to the point of oversaturation when the first versions of React were released.
PWAs (progressive web apps) surely existed before React though
Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
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Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#82I recently decided to publish an app on the App Store just so I could say I accomplished that, and maybe even make a little bit of beer money on the side. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage. I don’t expect it to be popular. It’s basically a worse version of stuff that is already available. I expected this to be a learning exercise about the process of getting stuff published. Lo…
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#83The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that. By the way, the link doesn't load for me, so I used the archive to read it. https://archive.ph/ByFBN
I love hosting and I will never stop doing it. I keep buying servers (second hand; almost no one actually needs the latest) and hosting 1000s of companies.
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#84Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The problem is, I tnink, that most people actually prefer apps over websites - even just a wrapper - for whatever reason.
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#86The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that. By the way, the link doesn't load for me, so I used the archive to read it. https://archive.ph/ByFBN
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#87I recently decided to publish an app on the App Store just so I could say I accomplished that, and maybe even make a little bit of beer money on the side. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage. I don’t expect it to be popular. It’s basically a worse version of stuff that is already available. I expected this to be a learning exercise about the process of getting stuff published. Lo…
I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5.
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's it. Apps took off because people felt comfortable yoloing stuff from the Apple app store, and for a short while before saturation, the app store reach was making small developers rich.
Apps took off because Apple did everything they could to make PWAs work badly, with no reliable notifications, no access to some data, etc. Apple did that because they want their sweet 30% from in-app purchases, which they couldn't enforce in PWAs.
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
PWAs (progressive web apps) surely existed before React though
React was open sourced in 2013. Service workers, which I consider to be essential to what we understand as PWAs, shipped first in Chrome in 2015, Safari in 2018.
Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
#90> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”! The short version: ad blockers work on browsers but not apps[0]. [0] https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle
Web traffic is so diluted and low signal.