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I don't think that's fair, the concept of a "store" with user reviews, changelogs, detailed app information (e.g. permissions) is great. It only becomes a problem when a platform decides to act as a gatekeeper for the entire platform with insane rules & fees.

Furthermore, social media is a really poor way to discover anything unless it happens to go viral. A general-purpose search engine such as Google is entirely suboptimal, as it can only match on keywords on the page. It doesn't address reviews or provide convenient (but optional) payment processing either.

You shouldn't be forced to use one specific store, but their role is nonetheless valuable. Whether it's for apps, books, appliances, or food.

I dunno, try looking for “qr code reader” on the play store and you will find the same spammy product listings that AMZN is choked with,

Android's app store may suck, but at least it's possible to start a competing store which sucks less.

It's technically possible, but will force your users to go through additional configuration steps, decreasing your audience ten-fold.

You have something like user reviews with comments on HN or reddit.

Changelogs and permissions are more difficult as they require the app store to control hosting. I don't think any developer would accept that unless there's no other choice, and on the web there is.

Google doesn't have reviews (why not?) but it can crawl every website that links to a web app, like an HN comment page, and use that to figure out what the web app is about.

A web app could provide an RSS feed of updates for scraping by app aggregators. This sounds like a great candidate for addition to the web app manifest format.

Okay, so you don't like stores, but I don't understand why you're ridiculing the author for suggesting what is an obviously valuable idea to many, if not most people?

You can distribute EXEs for Windows, but virtually all game developers use stores such as Steam for their value-add features. Customers don't only prefer this option, they often demand it.

You can distribute binaries for Linux, yet millions of people and servers use Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, etc. repositories.

It's a bit like making the infamous Dropbox comment, except doing it in 2024 with benefit of hindsight, the idea itself has already been validated by billions of users.

But such a store doesn't need to be a dedicated app on the device. It can be a third-party website—indeed; that is how it would make the most sense.

If this were something people were clamoring for, it is likely it would already exist, because the barrier to creating a website for linking, aggregating and reviewing PWAs should be quite low, with the only real challenge being the accumulation of a critical mass of users.

One major caveat is that PWAs don't have all the capabilities of a native app. I think that's the biggest issue people have with this -- if PWAs had full feature parity with native apps, I'd agree Apple's app store monopoly wouldn't be a big deal.

I think there are many reasons why something that people do want might not (yet) exist. For example, a monopolized market where customers don't have many choices. Or like you mentioned, difficulty in competing with incumbent advantage. Or maybe people just don't know what they want (e.g. "faster horses")

Accumulating a critical mass of users is nigh-insurmountable when you don’t own the platform. But also it’s not the only challenge: sustenance is. Google and Apple operate their app stores because they get a lot of value out of them—both because they make their platforms more useful, and because of their absurdly high taxes. But a third-party website that’s essentially just a link aggregator, how is it going to make money? The only realistic ways (advertising/sponsored listings, or charging subscriptions to either side of the marketplace) increase the critical mass required drastically, far beyond what’s realistic.

And indeed, there have been multiple attempts at something like this, because it is something people want—but there’s just no money in it, and so they’ve all failed.

> changelogs

I haven’t used a platform with these for a while, but my recollection of the Google Play Store was that the changelog was completely useless for almost all apps I ever used.

> detailed app information (e.g. permissions)

… which has historically been “it takes all these permissions and there’s nothing you can do about it”, though I gather this has been changing on at least Android, whereas on the web almost none of the equivalents are enabled by default (“connect to the internet” being the most obvious counterexample) and all beyond that must be granted explicitly at time of use.

> It only becomes a problem when a platform decides to act as a gatekeeper for the entire platform with insane rules & fees.

… which happens approximately every single time.

> I haven’t used a platform with these for a while, but my recollection of the Google Play Store was that the changelog was completely useless for almost all apps I ever used.

That is correct, and exactly the same on iOS. The average changelog says "bug fixes and improvements". Might as well be a giant middle finger.

> … which has historically been “it takes all these permissions and there’s nothing you can do about it”, though I gather this has been changing on at least Android

IME iOS does not have this issue because it never shoved all the permissions in a "permissions" tab granting all of them to the application at install. Instead permissions are usually opt-in when requested by the application. So applications have always been incentivised to limit their requirements (you can reject any request, and you can toggle them off afterwards through the setting, all the application can tell you is "I can't work without that dave"). Apple has also increased the number / scope of opt-in permissions over time, increasing the scope of that effect.

What's your point, exactly? All I'm saying is that places which aggregate and curate stuff can be a valuable, depending on the features and experience they provide.

I mentioned a few features I would personally find valuable, you might be interested in a store that only offers content suitable for kids, or some other niche. That's the beauty of open ecosystems.

> … which happens approximately every single time.

You seem confused. I think you need to read this thread again. The discussion was about alternatives to this exact problem. tldr; This can't happen on the web because a PWA store is just another website, much like HN or Reddit.

I read (and still read) that part of your comment as saying “app stores can be fine”, and am responding with “maybe in theory, but they never are”.

> There's no need for app stores on the web. We already have discovery (Hacker News)

Yikes. What about the other 99.9% of phone users? Google is a terrible choice for finding PC apps today, let alone phone apps.

> Yikes. What about the other 99.9% of phone users?

Those people can discover web apps on other websites.

I think that fails to appreciate the needs and skills of most users. App stores shouldn’t have a monopoly but they’re still necessary. They provide a consistent location and format for finding, installing, updating, and reviewing apps.

Saying “we have Hacker News for discoverability” is especially revealing of the lack of understanding and empathy tech people can often have for the majority of users.

It’s also simply a foregone conclusion. There’s a demand for discoverability and consistency. Whatever fills that demand we could just call an App Store.

Normal people use websites and follow links. Understanding and empathy is one thing, condescension is another.

You’re just describing an ill-suited App Store called a search engine.

GOG, Steam, and Itch.io exist despite not locking down entire platforms. There must be some sort of demand for a consistent way to discover and access software.

It might seem incredible, but there are legends of entire companies being built without App Store access in times of yore.

The world has changed.

I read somewhere that Windows 98 sold 15 million licences. Add in OEM machines and you've got a base of computer users in maybe the 100-200 million range - most of whom either had to use the device for work (which meant training) or had a level of enthusiasm for computing (which meant self-learning).

Today there are 7-odd billion smartphones out there. Most users just want something that gets things done with as little friction as possible.

Who uses these things and how they use them has changed beyond all recognition.

>Most users just want something that gets things done with as little friction as possible.

It's funny to read this as someone that always dreads having to get a new phone, or install some proprietary app, or reinstall a Windows VM, or sign up to some service, exactly because I know how much friction is going to be deliberately put in my way from every party involved.

"No you can't just change your phone's service provider", "No you can't unlock your phone's bootloader", "No you can't just boot into a new copy of the OS without signing into a bunch of things", "No you can't install this Windows image on a device without a trusted platform module", "No you can't just install a program from the web", "No you can't just look at all the files on your phone", "No you can't just have an app sync photos from the SD card", "No you can't create a login without giving us your phone number", "No you can't opt out of our 'telemetry'", "No you can't view the video you're paying for without the right OS/browser/monitor/cable".

Coming soon: "No you can't view the URL of the page you're on", "No you can't install an ad-blocker", "No you can't access this site without an attested, locked-down OS-browser stack", "No you can't install a different OS on this PC", "No you can't use a local, unlicensed generative AI model".

I think it's time we reframed the discussion and stopped dumbing users down and pretending that extremely anti-user behaviour is "user-friendly". Using technology used to be challenging because the hardware and software were still being bootstrapped to a point where it was fast, simple and bug-free to use. Now the experience of using technology is to have to navigate some corporate bureaucracy in every direction, which is totally independent of tech limitations.

In a better world, all schools would have computer literacy classes that did more than teach kids how to use Microsoft Office. Actually teaching them how computers work instead of siphoning them into learned helplessness just so big tech can keep on raking in billions.

> Add in OEM machines and you've got a base of computer users in maybe the 100-200 million range

Annual PC shipments are still around a quarter-billion units...

They've been over 200 million each year for the past 30 years. Peaked at 364 million in 2011.

They can ask on social networks, subscribe to newsletters, watch videos. I don't recall Hotmail or ICQ or Firefox needing an app store for people to find out about them.

I think an interesting approach would be to explore what a store does. A few ways to look at it is to explore what brick and mortar stores do, what they offer both consumers and producers, and to explore why app stores that aren’t monopolies exist. Eg. Gaming.

App stores are an ad delivery system these days. Apple/Google don't make money hosting a bunch of apps, the filthy lucre comes from companies paying to have their apps in the top slot.

Look, my grandmother is not going to browse hackernews so she can download the facebook. If she could search facebook on google and get a big old < Install > button next to the result, then maybe. But probably that won't happen on Google since they are incentivized not to for their 30% cut

In fact, google does return facebook as the first result when you search for "facebook"[1], and as for the install prompt that's something that facebook itself can show.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook

How can Facebook add an install prompt to a page controlled by Google?

Additionally, it's not like Big Tech is somehow preventing PWApp Stores from being a thing. They're already a thing. https://store.app/

The author mentions PWA stores like store.app, and some shortcomings:

> PWA app stores like Appscope and store.app exist, but they're hobbled by gatekeepers that have denied competing browsers access to APIs that could turn PWA directories into real contenders.

The author is simply wrong in this case. To make sure I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, I just went to store.app and added Microsoft Loop to my Home Screen in about 5 seconds. It was easier and faster than installing a native app!

Try asking someone who doesn't know tech to do it on their iphone. Then ask someone who doesn't know tech to do it on their android phone.

I can’t speak for Android, but it’s hard to imagine how store.app’s instructions for iOS users could be simpler.

PWA install experience is nice and easy on desktop, you're right.

But to be clear, the author is saying that on mobile, especially on iOS, PWA capabilities are crippled.

I say this with some authority, having worked on Microsoft's PWABuilder[0] including its iOS platform. There are a number of significant things not possible on iOS due to Apple's restrictions for web apps.

Things are getting better on mobile, albeit slowly thanks to Apple's feet-dragging mentioned in the author's post.

[0]: https://www.pwabuilder.com

> PWA install experience is nice and easy on desktop, you're right.

Cool, I've only tried on mobile myself. Here's the iOS experience for anyone who hasn't tried PWApp stores: https://imgur.com/a/2VMbvOp

> …on mobile, especially on iOS, PWA capabilities are crippled. I say this with some authority, having worked on Microsoft's PWABuilder including its iOS platform.

Great project, nice to meet you! I don't think I've hit these pain points as a user. What's your "top 3" of what Apple needs to do to make PWA installation suck less for iOS users?

As a developer, I expect I would do exactly what you recommended in 2021 (https://blog.pwabuilder.com/posts/publish-your-pwa-to-the-io...), which is to distribute web apps on the App Store proper (using PWABuilder, Capacitor, etc.) instead of as a PWA for the benefits (discoverability, "normal" installation experience) you note. Is that still good advice from your perspective?

> "What's your "top 3" of what Apple needs to do to make PWA installation suck less for iOS users?"

It's not so much about installation as it is about app capabilities. Many of the things native apps do easily, Apple makes difficult for web apps. Push notifications is one such thing. (Again, this is changing slowly.)

That said, yes, adding web apps to home screen is quite buried in iOS today.

> "As a developer, I expect I would do exactly what you recommended in 2021 (https://blog.pwabuilder.com/posts/publish-your-pwa-to-the-io...), which is to distribute web apps on the App Store proper (using PWABuilder, Capacitor, etc.) instead of as a PWA for the benefits (discoverability, "normal" installation experience) you note"

It's not an either/or. Personally, I build PWAs and make them publicly available on the web. Then, I publish them to app stores for visibility. Average, non-technical users look for apps in app stores, so that's where you need to be even if you app is built with web tech. This is the advice I gave in 2021, and it still holds true today.

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts!

While we're at it, we can get rid of yum and maven and just manually search forums for stuff to download.

How do you think things get into yum and maven in the first place?

Even supposing that what you're suggesting were true, why would it be beneficial to have everyone repeatedly go through the same work?