Live data from Hacker News

“It works better in the app”

shkspr.mobi

351–360 of 496 posts

Re: “It works better in the app”

#351
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the stupid rename, I haven't noticed it become any more of a cesspool than it was before the takeover, and in some ways it's arguably healthier (less echo-chamber-ey, and community notes can be useful). Again, this is purely talking about desktop web and avoiding the algorithmic feed. I think you're taking a very particular partisan US view and projecting it onto the rest of the world.

The problem now is everything you see if paid for ad. Even the people you follow if they have paid (blue checkmark) to have their posts raise higher in the feed (which is the same as an ad). It is all ads. I feel like suing every blue checkmark person for deceptive advertising.

As I said, I don't use the algorithmic feed at all, so I don't see how "paid (blue checkmark) to have their posts raise higher" applies.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people they want to follow. What's your point?

So... Who?

For whatever reason, I can't reply to your comment further down. I'd be perfectly happy to follow them on another platform if their tweets were piped elsewhere.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#353
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn too. The first time they show a bottom sheet dialog thing on the website, and if you dismiss it, it scrolls you all the way to the top. The second time it appears, it messes with the page and sometimes automatically closes the tab.

It's a real face palm how LinkedIn squandered the opportunity to be a relatively benign social media product. School kids would have zero interest in it except for that guy who wears a bowtie to high school. And yet they have made it such a swamp full of dark patterns. What's the marginal gain on that? They're the only game in town for the kinds of people who advertise on LinkedIn.

I love it how a normal social network makes a "ding" sound when somebody likes your post but LinkedIn gives you a "ding" for just posting anything at all! Overall it is a place that sends the message that "standards are low here"; don't know how to write? Microsoft Copilot will do it for you, etc.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#354
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is the worst. You go to a page and scroll down and it banners a beater in the app thing and you can’t dismiss it. You either get the app or close the tab. Close the tab.

Who on earth is still using Xitter, and what for?

Sorry to go off-topic, but you started it... Disagreeing with Musk politically is OK, but it might be advisable to not let your hatred warp the reality...Easily searchable _facts_:

X remains a large, influential real-time news and conversation platform (~half a billion combined MAUs)

- About 550 million monthly active users across X + Grok combined as of March 2026

- Up from about 520 million in December 2025

- ~ 350 million daily posts; 1.3 billion accounts active in the prior 12 months

Re: “It works better in the app”

#355
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UHaul is the only app I've ever encountered that is less efficient than talking to a human being behind a counter. I have tried multiple times to pick up a reservation via the app and it has taken so long or failed at some point that I had to walk into the store anyway. And it wants a photo of my license EVERY GODDAMN TIME. And no I can't store a photo of my license on my phone and just upload it - it has to take a p…

That's funny, I've NEVER, not even once, encountered ANY app from any company, in any business, that is easier or more efficient than talking to a human being behind a counter. (So long as the human behind the counter is not also hamstrung by dreadful Indian crapware...) Seriously, like most people, I have dozens of apps on my phone, forced on me by various needs. The ONLY one that makes anything easier or better is…

I dunno. It's so hard to get a plain ordinary brewed coffee at Dunkin these days, the kind of coffee I used to get there back in the 1980s. On the app I could actually pick one out, in person I'm likely to have a teenager give me something else and then have a nervous breakdown when I point out the one thing I care about on their digital signs: "If we get your order wrong we'll re-do it"

Re: “It works better in the app”

#356
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit might be worse, actually, given their app is mediocre at best and they killed 3rd-party apps.

In the last couple months if you go to their site in a mobile browser (e.g. from search results), after a short scroll down they have this popup demanding you install their app and it completely takes over the screen. I take it as a reminder never to install their app.

It's the worst on iPhone, because it won't even let me scroll back up to show the button to open the tabs view, I have to switch out of the browser and re-open it to be able to scroll to show.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#358
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your app is just a webpage that forces me to use an app just so you can spy on me I just won't use your product. I've switched brokers over it, I swapped banks, I stopped shopping at certain stores. I'm done. The only say I have is in how I spend my money. Those companies won't get any of mine if I can help it. I am the customer, not the product dammit.

> The only say I have is in how I spend my money. This. I get Frame.work and install Fedora. Use Firefox for everything possible. Once my current phone dies, I'll get a Fair phone, Motorola, or whatever gives me control. Can't complain if I keep choosing hostile products for some convenience

> Can't complain if I keep choosing hostile products for some convenience

Uh, yeah you can.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#359

In Google's defense, they weren't the ones that championed the "everything must be an app" movement. My memory of the 2010s is that Google (and while they were relevant, Palm) pushed cross-platform web apps, but Apple ran a successful marketing campaign to convince everyone that everything on mobile must be a native app for reasons[1]. So we end up with a walled garden of native apps that must be approved by and pay…

I remember the “There’s an app for that” commercials well. I remember screaming at my tv that we already had a name for that- a program.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=szrsfeyLzyg&pp=0gcJCYsCo7VqN5tD&...

Re: “It works better in the app”

#360
post #9

At this point the barrier for me to install an app is pretty high. If you're going to needlessly gate certain functions behind an app that work on a desktop browser (or could work in-browser), then I just won't use those functions. If by extension that degrades the value I get from your site, then I just won't use the site, and I won't be contributing to ADU stats you promote to advertisers. Every single company has…

Yeah, so many sites bug me to install their app just to read their web page. I'm not going to install every app, so just make the website usable. LinkedIn, Instagram, too many others to list them all. I'd rather not use them at all than install their app.
Post reply on HN