Why can’t a business be built solely without giving Apple a dime? The web is free — as in freedom and as in gratis. It has a developer tools system funded by hundreds of companies, developers and community members.
Because Apple limits the viability of non-native apps on its mobile devices? Same reason it refused to allow Flash. It wants you to stay in the walled garden with the expensive fees.
Reading the comments is convincing enough to believe there is no viable business to be built on the mobile web. It's great technology, sure; but not a great business. Mobile web apps won't pay the bills for people who build them. It seems worth everyone's time to have those mobile web devs instead build native apps. Ergo, Apple's "dips" are justified costs of doing business.
> Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”?
Because the web sucks at building apps? Because the web can barely render a few lines of text and several images without lag and jank? Because the web lacks useful and powerful primitives and controls to build anything but the most primitive UIs? Because...
The web is more than good enough. There's just a lot of people drinking the kool-aid and believing big tech's subtle and not so subtle messages about the web being shite. Of course the web is shite on devices from companies that compete with the web. They actively undermine it.
For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
In my experience, the only people drinking kool-aid are those claiming that the web is good enough, and failing to deliver web apps that can do anything beyond the absolutely primitive stuff.
With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps. I was playing Quake Live in the browser on a thermally throttled dual core laptop 15 years ago, but the hive mind here at HN will have you believe that the generic social media apps that dominate the charts all need to be "close to the metal": https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36
the web isn't shit per se. But it's horrible in the one way it matters to business; it is very hard to monetize web content compared to apps. That's a small part of why flash games quickly gave way to mobile.
But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.
immibis|1 year ago
troupo|1 year ago
Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about?
cafed00d|1 year ago
dzonga|1 year ago
i.e ads or search engine placement.
countless of public companies have it in their reports that mobile app users generate more revenue compared to web whether desktop or mobile.
and i'm not talking about game companies.
troupo|1 year ago
Because the web sucks at building apps? Because the web can barely render a few lines of text and several images without lag and jank? Because the web lacks useful and powerful primitives and controls to build anything but the most primitive UIs? Because...
rambambram|1 year ago
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
troupo|1 year ago
With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
throwitaway1123|1 year ago
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.