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The Missing App Economy (2022)

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Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#21

Post by thyselius »

candiddevmike wrote: post #3
sharemywin wrote: post #2

the problem with web is there's really no dispute mechanism and you don't know if you can trust an unknown website. doesn't mean you can't make it work just more friction that costs money.

In the process of pulling an app off the app stores. Yea, there will be more friction, but to me, a person finding my app organically and having a more direct relationship with them means more to me and has been more valuable than the low conversion sales I get from casual app store browsing.

I’d love To hear more about this

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#22

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

It should be obvious to everyone now that centralized platforms (like Apple's App Store) might be generous and foster innovation during their growth stages, but then become extractive and limit innovation in later stages. After all, they have total control of the platforms. This is why decentralization matters.[1]

The problem is that "decentralized" protocols often end up becoming de facto centralized because they lack key economic features.[2] And centralized platforms fill the gaps by offering those economic features — at the cost of giving them total control of the network.[3]

This is why the most innovative and most interesting web applications occur in the browser, which is open and permissionless — and where web domains are mostly decentralized in nature. The only way to ensure a platform retains something close to its original economic properties is to ensure it remains decentralized, but it's hard to resist centralization.

I know HN hates it, but there is a class of protocols that use cryptography and Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus mechanisms and are designed to resist centralization... and they have explicit and verifiable economic properties. They're known as crypto, and involve blockchains. And this appreciation for decentralized-by-design systems is colloquially called web3.

[1]: https://cdixon.org/2018/02/18/why-decentralization-matters

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGfS6pPJ5jo

[3]: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#23

Post by waboremo »

manmal wrote: post #19
spacebanana7 wrote: post #8

I recommend spending some time on OnlyFans to see what social networks can look like without the App Store. Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions all work together to allow creators to flourish financially. Apple’s 30% rules cripples YouTube’s ability to imitate these features and even restricts the viability of these features for platforms li…

> Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions As a user, that doesn’t sound great to be honest.

Most of that is already on the app store anyways, besides the parts that don't make sense (ie "video fundraisers").

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#24

Post by wwweston »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #22

It should be obvious to everyone now that centralized platforms (like Apple's App Store) might be generous and foster innovation during their growth stages, but then become extractive and limit innovation in later stages. After all, they have total control of the platforms. This is why decentralization matters.[1] The problem is that "decentralized" protocols often end up becoming de facto centralized because they la…

I don't see hate for protocols or cryptography on HN. But I do see

(a) skepticism about the actual decentralized (vs distributed) nature in practice (especially where the topic is financialized tech or even an end run around all the learning that's gone into the social codebase about finance).

(b) realize that decentralization presented by things like the web are essentially "good enough" that capabilities are strong, personal or entrepreneurial latitude is pretty wide, and obstacles are few.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#25

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

wwweston wrote: post #24
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #22

It should be obvious to everyone now that centralized platforms (like Apple's App Store) might be generous and foster innovation during their growth stages, but then become extractive and limit innovation in later stages. After all, they have total control of the platforms. This is why decentralization matters.[1] The problem is that "decentralized" protocols often end up becoming de facto centralized because they la…

I don't see hate for protocols or cryptography on HN. But I do see (a) skepticism about the actual decentralized (vs distributed) nature in practice (especially where the topic is financialized tech or even an end run around all the learning that's gone into the social codebase about finance). (b) realize that decentralization presented by things like the web are essentially "good enough" that capabilities are strong…

EDIT: Thanks for this comment — I edited the original for clarity.

I'm talking about crypto as in Ethereum, which are designed to resist centralization. HN wrongly thinks of crypto as a financial system (which it can do, for good and bad reasons thanks to its permissionlessness), instead of a family of methods for making composable, decentralized protocols with built-in economics (blockchains).

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#26

Post by TobyTheDog123 »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #25
wwweston wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see hate for protocols or cryptography on HN. But I do see (a) skepticism about the actual decentralized (vs distributed) nature in practice (especially where the topic is financialized tech or even an end run around all the learning that's gone into the social codebase about finance). (b) realize that decentralization presented by things like the web are essentially "good enough" that capabilities are strong…

EDIT: Thanks for this comment — I edited the original for clarity. I'm talking about crypto as in Ethereum, which are designed to resist centralization. HN wrongly thinks of crypto as a financial system (which it can do, for good and bad reasons thanks to its permissionlessness), instead of a family of methods for making composable, decentralized protocols with built-in economics (blockchains).

But why do these protocols need built-in economics? No user is going to want to have a wallet that slowly drains as they use the web -- it's just not convenient and will be thoroughly rejected by the mainstream.

Compare this to something like torrenting - people give, people take. Sure, indexing is centralized, but once you have the index, it's all p2p. That's the direction decentralization should be taking, instead of the next generation of microtransactions where they're required for operation.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#27

Post by TobyTheDog123 »

gumby wrote: post #17

Honestly I prefer a native app to a web app because the web browser is basically an O/S running inside an O/S and there's a annoying amount of gain mismatch / poor coupling between the two. Native (non electron) apps on the Mac just integrate with the other OS capabilities (e.g. text selection, drag/drop all work consistently and interoperate properly; keystrokes, shortcuts, system context menu & integrations, etc ju…

I'd argue bookmarks achieve much of the same result, but I see your point.

Cross-platform, as much as I'd like it to work, just doesn't seem to ever feel native. I'd very much like to see a transpilation-based cross-platform development framework that generates real Swift/Kotlin/Javascript for iOS/Android/Web, but I'm not sure if it's possible with all of the nice developer experience goodies that developers would come to expect (namely hot reloading) -- but maybe!

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#28

Post by gumby »

TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #27
gumby wrote: post #17

Honestly I prefer a native app to a web app because the web browser is basically an O/S running inside an O/S and there's a annoying amount of gain mismatch / poor coupling between the two. Native (non electron) apps on the Mac just integrate with the other OS capabilities (e.g. text selection, drag/drop all work consistently and interoperate properly; keystrokes, shortcuts, system context menu & integrations, etc ju…

I'd argue bookmarks achieve much of the same result, but I see your point. Cross-platform, as much as I'd like it to work, just doesn't seem to ever feel native. I'd very much like to see a transpilation-based cross-platform development framework that generates real Swift/Kotlin/Javascript for iOS/Android/Web, but I'm not sure if it's possible with all of the nice developer experience goodies that developers would co…

People have been trying to make that work since the 80s.

The different interfaces don’t have the same metaphors or semantics so cross-platform UI toolkits are always restricted to worst-case lowest common denominator capabilities.

You see this outside UX too — few programs are written to pure POSIX because usually you want to do more than that core.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#29

Post by madeofpalk »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #8

I recommend spending some time on OnlyFans to see what social networks can look like without the App Store. Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions all work together to allow creators to flourish financially. Apple’s 30% rules cripples YouTube’s ability to imitate these features and even restricts the viability of these features for platforms li…

The App Store doesn't prevent any of this (though, the App Store won't distribute porn) - it just requires a 30% cut. What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions?

Youtube can imitate these features on it's website, where it can surely do a better job due to scale. Twitch does this - arguably OnlyFans is largely modelled on Twitch.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#30

Post by kyleyeats »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #22

It should be obvious to everyone now that centralized platforms (like Apple's App Store) might be generous and foster innovation during their growth stages, but then become extractive and limit innovation in later stages. After all, they have total control of the platforms. This is why decentralization matters.[1] The problem is that "decentralized" protocols often end up becoming de facto centralized because they la…

It's called dweb. Sometimes people do get it confused with 'web3' but that was just the name of the massive 2-billion-dollar shit a16z took on everything.

Dwebcamp just extended ticket sales if you want to go talk to real dweb people: https://dwebcamp.org/

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