They don’t have to be, as far as I understand it. I’ve installed a few websites as apps on my phone (because their app had trackers in it) and they can work really well. Examples are Bluesky and Flipboard.
An example where I agree with you is LinkedIn - installed as a web app due to trackers - but they know this, and the whole point of their app is to get you with Facebook and Microsoft trackers, so they make the web app experience miserable on purpose.
But (and correct me if I’m wrong) a PWA made by a non-surveillance capitalist could be just as good as a native app.
Half of the equation is that those making the PWA need to make it well. The other half is that the platform you install it on has to support it well. And Google and Apple have decided to support PWAs as little as possible (in some cases removing support for them altogether. See Apple removing the ability to use them entirely in the EU). And since those two companies make the two most commonly used mobile OS’… well it’s better to just go with a native app.
The #1 biggest problem with PWAs on iOS for example is the lack of push notification support, which for a lot of apps is a nonstarter. Is that the PWA makers fault? No. Does it make that PWA suck anyway? Yes.
They don’t have to be, as far as I understand it. I’ve installed a few websites as apps on my phone (because their app had trackers in it) and they can work really well. Examples are Bluesky and Flipboard.
An example where I agree with you is LinkedIn - installed as a web app due to trackers - but they know this, and the whole point of their app is to get you with Facebook and Microsoft trackers, so they make the web app experience miserable on purpose.
But (and correct me if I’m wrong) a PWA made by a non-surveillance capitalist could be just as good as a native app.
Half of the equation is that those making the PWA need to make it well. The other half is that the platform you install it on has to support it well. And Google and Apple have decided to support PWAs as little as possible (in some cases removing support for them altogether. See Apple removing the ability to use them entirely in the EU). And since those two companies make the two most commonly used mobile OS’… well it’s better to just go with a native app.
The #1 biggest problem with PWAs on iOS for example is the lack of push notification support, which for a lot of apps is a nonstarter. Is that the PWA makers fault? No. Does it make that PWA suck anyway? Yes.
You do know that a pwa can be packaged up in an app container and you won’t even be able to tell the difference?
It doesn’t actually have to operate like a pwa, and require native pwa sport.