What a weird comment lol. You can write a bot asking "why would anyone use (the product mentioned in title)" to every HN thread. That's how much it contributes to the discussion.
HN is becoming more and more like Stackoverflow. Half the comments pretend this is not an issue or irrelevant and the other half posts hasty, incorrect solutions.
I genuinely don’t know, which is why I asked. Even on mobile I only ever use the website and can see literally no benefit whatsoever to there being an app.
TLDR: user reach and convenience (or avoidance of the inconvenience artificially created by the app store companies to ensure own monopoly).
App stores are another source of distribution of the platform. Apps create another engagement channel. Apps are another way to reach more people and keep them "hooked" longer (push notifications, tighter integration with the system). Poor performance of the website-only apps is often offputting showing lower retention and engagement metrics. People don't konow how to create a web app icon on the home screen, but know how to search for apps in the appstore.
Some platforms make website-based apps harder to create and manage (in the name of the resource optimisation or security). So no background players, no face-based logins, no airplay, battery drains way faster with web based apps, no proper file storage, hard to handle guestures, no restoration of the state of the pages, etc, etc.
When inside patreon company there is a question "do we do the native app or we keep the website" there is no good argument from project manager side why not to do the app as it increases all the metrics they care about and accept future possible risk that something will change from Apple side.
What a weird comment lol. You can write a bot asking "why would anyone use (the product mentioned in title)" to every HN thread. That's how much it contributes to the discussion.
HN is becoming more and more like Stackoverflow. Half the comments pretend this is not an issue or irrelevant and the other half posts hasty, incorrect solutions.
Why would you think reality shows so many people using patreon app?
I genuinely don’t know, which is why I asked. Even on mobile I only ever use the website and can see literally no benefit whatsoever to there being an app.
Notifications? Video and audio playback? Really not rocket science.
TLDR: user reach and convenience (or avoidance of the inconvenience artificially created by the app store companies to ensure own monopoly).
App stores are another source of distribution of the platform. Apps create another engagement channel. Apps are another way to reach more people and keep them "hooked" longer (push notifications, tighter integration with the system). Poor performance of the website-only apps is often offputting showing lower retention and engagement metrics. People don't konow how to create a web app icon on the home screen, but know how to search for apps in the appstore.
Some platforms make website-based apps harder to create and manage (in the name of the resource optimisation or security). So no background players, no face-based logins, no airplay, battery drains way faster with web based apps, no proper file storage, hard to handle guestures, no restoration of the state of the pages, etc, etc.
When inside patreon company there is a question "do we do the native app or we keep the website" there is no good argument from project manager side why not to do the app as it increases all the metrics they care about and accept future possible risk that something will change from Apple side.
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