To be fair, they're only whining about PWAs, because Apple artificially locked down all native apps. Apple forced the developer shift, their own preferences didn't necessarily change.

If you could install + sell iPhone apps freely, like you can with OSX / macOS apps, 99% of developer complaints about PWAs would vanish.

No because the reason that developers want PWAs do that they can have the same shitty experience across all platforms - much like Electron apps

The developers on HN clamoring for PWA support are not the same devs making "one layout works fine on all screen sizes" webapps.

I'm sad you're equating the two groups.

Yes because the developers on HN can make good graphical apps using cross platform frameworks unlike the

- Java developers

- every mobile OS provider ever who said the same thing - Palm, Microsoft, Google (dart), RIM and even Apple at one point had the same “sweet solution”

- all Electron developers

You're equating webapps with cross-platform frameworks, so we'll just talk past each other.

None of what you mentioned is all of "what webapps are",

just a short list of shortcuts to the technical definition of one.

So exactly what is the difference between a “cross platform framework that runs on top of a VM that abstracts the difference in the underlying hardware” in this case of cross platform frameworks and a web app where it runs on a top of a browser that serves the same purpose and also abstracts the underlying hardware that has the same drawbacks?

Performance? UX? I mean, tons.

What drawbacks do webapps compiled to WASM have, for you today?

Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing.

I mean users do complain about not being able to sideload apps, which is an issue that is at least partially/minimally addressed through PWAs.

I imagine users care far more about how bloated and slow Slack, Teams etc are.

Rather than whether they can side-load some apps that don't already exist on the App Store. Which apart from gambling, porn and crypto I can't exactly think what they are.

Porn is a significant share of device/internet usage though (not sure how big gambling is).

And plenty of people watch porn on iPhones today.

This is more about having specific apps for it.

This is about whether or not people might complain about not being able to side-load apps.

As a significant content category is excluded from the app store, it seems very likely that some people would like to side-load those apps and complain about not being able to do so.

[Edit] Another reason why people might want to side-load is to circumvent restrictions or censorship in authoritarian countries (e.g VPNs).

I really hate to ask this question because it may lead down a road that I don’t want to go.

But what could a porn app do that you can’t do by going on a website?

If you can answer this question for Youtube and TikTok, you have already answered it for porn tube sites as well. Other categories would probably be erotic themed chat apps, social networks and of course games. And the reasons are just as valid or invalid as for the respective non-porn equivalents.

As far as I'm concerned, almost all apps could be websites.

And what do you actually get from the YouTube app that you can’t do from the website especially now that Safari finally supports notifications from the web? The same with chat apps?

I prefer using the Facebook website over the native app because the in app webview doesn’t support ad block.

I often prefer webapps as well, for instance because I can open multiple pages to keep state I meant to come back to.

But all the same reasons why some apps need native features and why some people prefer native apps are just as valid for porn. It’s not my personal preference.

How many users outside of geeks complain about side loading?

Whenever a family member bitches to me about not being able to buy kindle books through the kindle app I count that as a non-geeky complaint about sideloading :)