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Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

toot.kuba-orlik.name

21–30 of 158 posts

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#21

This reminds me of Reddit's approach to mobile. They make their mobile web interface excruciating to use, and block features client side just to push you onto their app. I'm guessing it has to do with mobile users being more lucrative?

Reddit is just content that you browse and occasionally leave a text comment on, it fits browser perfectly.

A taxi app, on the other hand, has a lot of functionality that is very hard to fit into a browser and implement well.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#22
post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

You say unverified, but I’m pretty sure there’s lots of verification for this. Obviously it will depend on the service or app, but it’s a well known trend. At my previous job our app had much higher retention than our web product, despite the web product being much more mature, modern, and feature rich. We verified this across multiple marketing channels, and looked at long term user retention over years.

Could it be that the mobile interface was simply better in terms of speed, usability, smoothness of the UX? Complex web apps honestly often look and feel shite in the browser.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#23
post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

Sometimes it looks like designers are using this without any kind of thought. A page in my country, that is used for managing appointments with medical specialists forces user to install it, to read some messages (mostly automated) from this facilities. After installation it tries to remind user that it's there by pushing notifications about it's existence, like anyone is going to be like "I'm bored, I'll check all local urologists and maybe make an appointment with one, just for fun"

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#24

This reminds me of Reddit's approach to mobile. They make their mobile web interface excruciating to use, and block features client side just to push you onto their app. I'm guessing it has to do with mobile users being more lucrative?

Reddit mobile web is so full of dark patterns.

It really put a dent in how much I used to love Reddit.

And the mobile app is terrible terrible turd of epic proportions. The person who designed it is a monster.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#25
Does this kind of stuff really never backfire? I can see maybe with Bolt or Uber since you're in a hurry you might just cave, but I see this behavior everywhere!

In a world where every app tries to exploit "spur of the moment" brain shortcircuits a big nag seems counterintuitive, e.g. Reddit's "Download the app or go away" is my free reminder that I have better things to do.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#26
post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

Why are you calling it an unverified myth? In reality there are petabytes generated everyday proving the efficacy of mobile apps vs websites. This has been tested and measured in pretty much every possible way at this point with 100s of billions in ad spend.

It's not just real estate on the screen, it's faster on-device processing with lower latency, rich offline abilities, better and more persistent access to more API's from notifications to storage, stronger identity with durable logins, and of course better analytics tracking.

It's not always the correct choice but native apps are the overall winner for mobile UX.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#27
post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

> Deception works momentarily and can have an immediate effect on some metrics. Long terms though, every user and no matter how smart or dumb, will eventually assess the value it gets them against the money, against their time, or against the "home screen real estate" they provided.

Long term hardly matters for most these days, they're optimizing for $ and promotions as mercenaries. That metric bump will get the PM promoted where they'll jump ship to the next company and juice the app metrics the same.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#28
post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

Why are you calling it an unverified myth? In reality there are petabytes generated everyday proving the efficacy of mobile apps vs websites. This has been tested and measured in pretty much every possible way at this point with 100s of billions in ad spend. It's not just real estate on the screen, it's faster on-device processing with lower latency, rich offline abilities, better and more persistent access to more A…

But in the context of Bolt, I believe they aren't displaying ads in their app?

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#29

This reminds me of Reddit's approach to mobile. They make their mobile web interface excruciating to use, and block features client side just to push you onto their app. I'm guessing it has to do with mobile users being more lucrative?

Reddit is just content that you browse and occasionally leave a text comment on, it fits browser perfectly. A taxi app, on the other hand, has a lot of functionality that is very hard to fit into a browser and implement well.

I have a location where I am and a location I want to get to. I need a way to specify the two, and a way to enter payment info. That is literally all a taxi app should do.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#30

> we, the users, are compliant with such abuse of monopoly. But Bolt is not a monopoly. There are many taxi services in Riga. > I invite you to boycott any company that forces (or coerces) you to install an app... I do not think I will boycott Bolt just because you hacked their product and somehow become outraged. Bolt rides are cheaper than the alternative and .. the app works. The alternative mainstream taxi app ne…

Not really, it is sort of a monopoly. The only competitor app we had was Yandex Taxi, but ever since the war we don't have it here anymore.
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