Comment by larme

So many web developers keep pushing to give web the same power as native apps. "What's the difference between a PWA and native app? Why web cannot access the same api?"

So I want to ask another question: "What's the difference among knives, guns and missiles. Why almost everyone can buy a knife, but need a license to buy a gun, and may never able to buy a missile (even with enough funds)". One possible (and obvious )answer is because guns and missiles are more powerful than knives, we want to give them more restrictions.

Now can we reverse the logic and say, if we are able to decide the power of items, we should give items with less restriction less power? Let's limit our discussion on a mobile device, it's very easy to visit a website. But if you want to use a native app, you need to go to the app store, tap the download button, confirm, wait until the download is finished and the app is installed, and then finally open it. The app was also reviewed by the app store beforehand. This makes a difference. In fact, I think the ubiquity of web means we should never allow it to have the same power of what an native app can have.

And people are talking about the monopoly of apple. But if web become THE operating system one day, google will be a more dominant monopoly. They control both the implementation of the os (chrome) and the entry (search engine).