(e.g. selling https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd on the App Store was so much easier than integrating a payment/licensing SDK myself)
In my view, the web is mostly used for information while apps are mostly created to provide an experience.
With PWAs and their new native like features, we might be moving towards closing that gap on mobile in terms of experience.
But the "making money" part still remains partly unsolved. It's much harder to sell a PWA than an app on the App Store, and this deters developers from pursuing that approach.
> But the "making money" part still remains partly unsolved.
This is the only thing that concerns me about my current app plans. But here's my current thought process. A PWA would be much easier to use to test the market. Because it's faster to iterate and to deliver on both mobile OSs. Monetization of a social media app comes after you've attracted tens of thousands of users. So two years out if you still have a business, you can invest in native implementations.
Money comes either from users or from advertisers or both.
I think Apple will direct more developers towards building PWAs because it will reduce their review burden. Why else would they be adding features (notifications, installation) that make PWAs better? Doesn't it make sense therefore that Apple will also add support for monitization?
Native support for buying PWAs (or at least in-app purchases) would probably be a game changer yes.
It sounds possible in theory: Apple gets to keep their 30% cut while allowing devs to sell even more apps.
But they would have no way of screening the PWAs, and if a PWA reaches enough feature parity to be usable by big sellers of subscriptions like Netflix, those sellers will surely invest effort in creating a PWA with their own payment SDK that bypasses Apple’s cut.
This is where I think the incentives are not aligned. Small devs want an easy to use monetization framework and are happy to give a percentage of their income for that, but Apple might want more large sellers which bring far more money for less managing effort.
You might not be familiar with the App Store restriction on in-app links/buttons to external payment methods. An app on the App Store must only provide subscriptions through Apple's own means which gives them a 30% cut of every subscription payment.
But I still build apps instead of websites, because:
(e.g. controlling monitor brightness with https://lunar.fyi/) (e.g. selling https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd on the App Store was so much easier than integrating a payment/licensing SDK myself)In my view, the web is mostly used for information while apps are mostly created to provide an experience.
With PWAs and their new native like features, we might be moving towards closing that gap on mobile in terms of experience.
But the "making money" part still remains partly unsolved. It's much harder to sell a PWA than an app on the App Store, and this deters developers from pursuing that approach.