The prevailing "business person" thought is that app users are more loyal (high value) while web users are temporary users that Google will eventually steal away from you when they decide they want to be in your market and want to stop putting you at the top of search result pages. See Yelp's decline as Google started putting their own local results above Yelp and the resulting lawsuits.
As a result, most Silicon Valley product managers are trained to think that websites are nothing more than the top of a funnel to eventually convert low-value search engine users into high-value app users. Once you realize this, almost every stupid thing websites do suddenly makes sense. They will do almost anything possible to grow app installs even if it makes the website nearly useless.
Sure, it's terrible if you care about the web and user experience. But most PMs only stick around a company for 1-2 years and they'd rather be able to show a hockey stick graph of "high value" app user growth to get promoted or get a new job then worry about what makes for a good user experience.
It's not the PMs being rogue evil; they (and the engineers) are serving their employers faithfully.
Another reason is that a local app can spy on you more (track your location, for example) to collect data to sell, harass you with notification spam, and display non-blockable ads.
Yep. Another more recent example is Venmo. Since Paypal acquired them, they've been steadily removing functionality from the website to force users onto the app.
Another good example is Sonos ... they are slowly letting their desktop application die to force users onto iOS or android apps.
In the case of Sonos, it is much darker and user hostile because there is no danger of "web consumers being siphoned off by google" - you have to buy the Sonos components anyway. In this case it is all about metadata and traffic and user profiling.
I barely ever use the Sonos app on either iOS or desktop. I just use Spotify or Apple Music and route music to Sonos from there, so not sure if you are correct. With AirPlay2 I only use the app to set up new speakers. So not sure if you are correct.
e: Most likely the desktop app has seen declining usage the last decade, which is why Sonos doesn't prioritize it.
Agreed. This is a great analysis. Also keep in mind if the funnel thinks web users are low value and app users are high value, if web users fall it is a sign that the strategy is working. Not that you have loads of annoyed users.
It's also a way for PMs who own apps to build habit-forming loops. If you download the app, you can send push notifications, deep link from email, etc. "Better experience" and all that, ultimately leading to more ad impressions or a purchases in-app.
I'm pulling these numbers out of a hat, but I would wager users with rooted Android devices are below 1% of the mobile user base, and probably below 0.1% of the total user base including desktop.
Counterpoint, installing uBlock in Firefox is a piece of cake, but lots of apps don't work on rooted devices. I know there are ways to hide root from detection, but I don't care to ride that treadmill back and forth.
Business has one number they want to increase: app usage (easier to track users, serve ads, make money)
The dev team A/B tests a bunch of options until that number goes up, and then double down on the success. They don't really care about what users actually want, they're just pushing that app number up in any way possible. Their job performance is likely based on whether or not that number increases.
Medium does this too and it's a huge danger of taking a data-first approach to user experience. A/B testing on its own isn't bad, but it's often what drives this business behavior.
A huge investment will likely make them push this type of thing even harder because now they have to prove the investment's worth.
You can probably grab the IDFA or the ADID with an app directly, and having a stronger linkage between an online identity/cookie probably makes the data more valuable for advertising purposes.
100% device IDs are deterministic vs cookies. Advertiser platforms (like Reddit) need to tell a compelling audience story and that requires a strong user identity graph.
> Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?
Simple: you can’t block ads in a native App (at least not by installing an ad blocker or other methods accessible to normal users, you‘d have to modify DNS responses or similar).
I think another major reason is that if someone is seeking to amuse themselves then in a browser they're as likely to skip over to another website; whilst in an app there's a mental barrier to that. I imagine people are more likely to change and view another subreddit, rather than jump to another website altogether.
There's a censorship angle too, wherein the app operators get greater control over the message their users receive than do website operators.
It gives users easier access and a better experience, so they're more likely to return and to spend longer. The ultimate goal is to become a "default time waster" for as many people as possible, who open the app whenever they're bored.
There's no "better experience" in an app, unless it relies on native features like low-level high performance graphics, accelerometer/sensors, and other physical phone attributes not yet exposed to browsers.
And Sync and AlienBlue if they're still around. It blows my mind that one dev is able to push out such a high quality product where the official app feels amateurish by comparison. It really highlights the difference between development that serves Reddit vs development that serves the user.
It's a lot easier to run browser based ad blockers now than it used to be. Mobile Safari now allows them and installing an adblock extension in Firefox for Android is as easy as on desktop.
Users are more likely to give apps e.g. location permission, or contact list permissions, which make a user value (in eyeball models) aignificantly higher than a web user.
Why? What's the business reason? What does a native app provide the business that a mobile website doesn't?