> Then of course websites can override the behavior of the navigation buttons...
Really, in practice how often are you prevented from leaving a website? Except for porn and pirate websites, almost never, and taking over the back button/onWindowExit is now mitigated in most browsers. For the majority of the people on the planet, they browse hundreds of websites, without ever needing to give a cognitive thought of cleaning up their cache. Websites are effectively emphemeral from a cognitive standpoint to most people, whereas app installation is not.
The web surfing is like channel surfing TV, when you change the channel, you're done. App installation eventually creates an environmental cleanup task for you.
The install model is a giant regression to the ease of consumption and low cognitive overhead the web brought.
> In my experience, none. I pay cash, debit card or in some cases using a single phone number based bank transfer app that's ubiquitous in my home country. In no cases have I needed a vendor-specific app to do this. Are you telling me that you can't go to Starbucks and buy coffee without installing their crapware?
The purpose of POS apps is not just payment, but parallelization. A POS is a queue, which means customers have to wait in line to give their order. You've never had to stand in line in front of several indecisive people? POS apps provide the ability for you to conduct the entire transaction without getting in line, and indeed, place your order and then arrive just-in-time when its ready. I routinely order, and then arrive to pick up with zero wait. Hundreds of millions of Chinese who use WeChat for 'O2O' commerce like this and it is the ultimate in convenience.
For people with disabilities, POS apps are a god send. And they're especially great for this pandemic. The only problem is, there's no need they be "apps" that get installed.
> It is clearly the case now that security and privacy significantly suffers from the browser API surface.
Browser security in the Firefox and Chrome world has been more solid than the 'apps' world. I'll take the browser sandbox over the app sandbox any day. And the browser API surface hardly matters when third party cookies, which have been around since 1995, are still widely used for tracking, and the biggest bit of fingerprinting entropy -- your IP address -- is core to the internet itself. And again, these APIs won't matter for fingerprinting if they are behind permission requests, because they can't be automatically used by third party ad networks.
Now excuse me, I have to give back to a meeting on that App Store reviewed Zoom app to conduct my meetings. I have nothing to worry about eh?
Really, in practice how often are you prevented from leaving a website? Except for porn and pirate websites, almost never, and taking over the back button/onWindowExit is now mitigated in most browsers. For the majority of the people on the planet, they browse hundreds of websites, without ever needing to give a cognitive thought of cleaning up their cache. Websites are effectively emphemeral from a cognitive standpoint to most people, whereas app installation is not.
The web surfing is like channel surfing TV, when you change the channel, you're done. App installation eventually creates an environmental cleanup task for you.
The install model is a giant regression to the ease of consumption and low cognitive overhead the web brought.
> In my experience, none. I pay cash, debit card or in some cases using a single phone number based bank transfer app that's ubiquitous in my home country. In no cases have I needed a vendor-specific app to do this. Are you telling me that you can't go to Starbucks and buy coffee without installing their crapware?
The purpose of POS apps is not just payment, but parallelization. A POS is a queue, which means customers have to wait in line to give their order. You've never had to stand in line in front of several indecisive people? POS apps provide the ability for you to conduct the entire transaction without getting in line, and indeed, place your order and then arrive just-in-time when its ready. I routinely order, and then arrive to pick up with zero wait. Hundreds of millions of Chinese who use WeChat for 'O2O' commerce like this and it is the ultimate in convenience.
For people with disabilities, POS apps are a god send. And they're especially great for this pandemic. The only problem is, there's no need they be "apps" that get installed.
> It is clearly the case now that security and privacy significantly suffers from the browser API surface.
Browser security in the Firefox and Chrome world has been more solid than the 'apps' world. I'll take the browser sandbox over the app sandbox any day. And the browser API surface hardly matters when third party cookies, which have been around since 1995, are still widely used for tracking, and the biggest bit of fingerprinting entropy -- your IP address -- is core to the internet itself. And again, these APIs won't matter for fingerprinting if they are behind permission requests, because they can't be automatically used by third party ad networks.
Now excuse me, I have to give back to a meeting on that App Store reviewed Zoom app to conduct my meetings. I have nothing to worry about eh?