
Ask HN: What's stopping PWAs from being more popular? - julienreszka
PWAs = progressive web apps<p>Why can&#x27;t we just get rid of most native apps and app store duopolies? Or at least complement them with good web apps, that work offline, use service workers, small sized and so on?
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stephenr
Performance, efficiency, native UI, privacy, security.. I mean, really you
need to make a reasonable case for why you think a web page can replace
compiled code running locally on the device, not the other way around.

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julienreszka
Freedom? Both on the consumer side and the company side? Also web indexing?
Easier sharing? privacy concerns?

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stephenr
Freedom from what?

How does web indexing help the end user?

Sharing what?

How do you imagine that a cached webpage is more private than a locally
running compiled app?

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julienreszka
Not freedom from but freedom to : set your own terms not the terms of the play
store or the iPhone store. Indexing helps the user find the app. Sharing a
specific page of the app to a friend's thanks to the URL.

You can't install an app without accepting all permission, contact info, sms,
and so on. Facebook is much more privacy agressive on native than on the web.

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cerberusss
I can instantly rat out a web app, instead of a native app. They scroll in the
wrong places, don't react instantly, have weird or very uncommon widgets, look
like a page is loading, etc.

If you don't care about high quality of UI, then sure.

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bigiain
From my little part of the industry, clients _want_ to be in the two app
stores. Even when what they're putting there would be better as a PWA.

(Also, it seems from my perspective, that clients with money here care most
about being on iPhone, and service workers there are not yet ready for
primetime. Its only been available for 7-8 weeks, and it's got some warts -
only 50MB of storage, your cache and persistent storage may vanish after only
a few weeks, and no push notifications - which is the showstopper where I
am...)

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deca6cda37d0
A centralised place for discovery of PWA’s. Like an App Store.

