I like building websites. But in some circles, I might as well say that I like to drive to the forest before sunrise, chop down a tree, load it in my trunk, and gather some dry wood as well, then drive back before first light. All this just to use the wood to start a fire and cook breakfast for my family in our high-rise apartment. It makes no sense.
There is a large class of apps that could be replaced by a simple website, especially those made for schools that only present information. The worst part is that in those apps, most of the things we take for granted on the web are blocked. You can't copy and paste, you can't open a link in a new app, and you have to update the entire app just to get new information. For someone like me, who never updates an app until it's necessary, I usually end up with broken applications.
But when I complain, I'm usually alone in those circles, because no one seems to know what a website is. The more I explain, the more I sound like a character from the 90s explaining how cool email is.
They don't know what a website is. Check their phones, they have a thousand apps.
The last time I blogged about just using websites, several people pointed out that they prefer using apps. My argument was that there is nothing the LinkedIn app does that necessitates an app. All its features are supported on the web. All but pervasive tracking. But I'm fighting a losing battle, because a large number of people have forgotten, or never knew, that LinkedIn is just a website. So is Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
They push you toward the app only so they can better harvest information from you.
So when we tell people to use the website instead of the app, they don't understand, because these services only push the app. A large number of the population has started to believe that a website is just a preview of an app, like a lightweight version.
While I'm here complaining about a single app displaying an unexpected notification, people in my circle have a thousand unread notifications. It's a surprise that they somehow respond to my messages in the midst of all those alerts. I've met people who have an app for every single restaurant they go to. While I'm reading the privacy policy of a single app, trying to determine if it's worth downloading to benefit from a 20% discount, my friends are already in the loyalty program of the juice bar that opened down the street less than a day ago.
People download apps, and they don't understand websites. They have a thousand apps on their screen and would rather swipe through it to find the one app they need for a single purpose.
When I read Dan Q's post a few days ago, I was relieved for a second, just to know that I'm not alone. We prefer using websites, and we know most apps are oversized wrappers around a website. But I have to remember that the people with a thousand apps are not the minority. We are. We are the few who would rather use a progressive web app than download a 300 MB wrapper.
I'm not prescribing a solution here, just want to remind the web community that outside of our circles, people happily download a 300 MB app that displays information already available on the web.