99% of notification requests being blocked is not the same as 99% of users blocking notifications. If every user visits 100 sites and accepts notifications from one of them, then 100% of users actually want notifications despite 99% of requests being denied.
I'm not defending stupid notification popups from some website you'll only ever visit once. Those are annoying. I'm saying you can't tell what users want unless you specifically measure exactly that. Maybe you're right and 99% of users don't want notifications, but that's not what your cited numbers show. You're drawing a conclusion from the data that isn't there.
Again though you're making assumptions that the data can't back up. If a site asks to send me notifications and I say no that doesn't make the notifications spam. That just means I don't want to see them for some reason.
And besides, for something to be spam you need to actually see it. In the case of notifications if you deny the permission on a site you don't see the notifications. That's the perfect spam filter. Imagine a world where people could only send you email if you explicitly said you accepted it from them. Or if robocallers could only call you if you agreed first. Spam would be over. There would be no spam. That sounds fantastic.
TL;DR: I'd like to see web notifications improved rather than abandoned because I think they are part of a suite of features that could provide important competition for native apps on mobile devices.
> Somehow, by the time it reaches any of my multiple inboxes it’s not 99% spam
Right. Email providers didn't fix spam by throwing away the ability to send unsolicited messages, they fixed it by looking at the behavior of bad actors and blocking it, and evolving the UX of email services to adapt ("Report Spam" buttons and the like). My comment above was intended to suggest that rather than demanding the industry throw out the feature that would allow a website to send notifications at all, they can instead invest in making the experience more streamlined for the user (fewer notifications, less intrusive request flow). They could even use some of the same techniques used in fighting spam, like allowing users to report sites that are abusive in how they ask for permission.
The subtext here is that I think progressive web apps have the potential to foster a more open online culture than can be achieved through app stores alone, and they also give the user more control over the experience, since they leverage the browser, which is a "user agent" in a way that that apps rarely (if ever) achieve. Adopting a stance that solidifies the current inadequacies of web apps pushes more users and developers to "app store apps", which tilt the balance of power towards app store owners and away from users and developers. I think that trend has already caused problems (Spotify, Fortnite, Librem Tunnel[0], etc.), and I don't see any reason the problems will lessen in the future.
For me on Android Firefox website push notifications don't even work. I thought this was by design. Am I doing something wrong? There's a couple of sites where I really do want this.
Who are you? And why does only your absolute opinion matter, when others are asking for a choice?