How much work is installing the app? Single tap? The same of less than opening a web page?
No need to remember screen and folder, just use global search on your phone.
Assuming I'm linked right to the exact app to install.
Click install. Review and approve permissions. Wait for some ungodly amount of megabytes to download. Wait for installation. Then open. Then approve some new permissions. Splash screen. Woo, content! But I'm not "deep linked" to the place I need to be.
Well, it's not a lot of work. But it feels like way more work. It's visible even in the way we talk about it - "viewing a website" vs "getting an app". Looking at something is effortless, getting it implies effort. Often, too much of it, if I just want to check some stuff out quickly.
Also, I feel like after installing an app, it takes more time to get to the actual content, because every app has a few screens of "Welcome to Foo! Here's how you do stuff in here." Websites are pretty instant compared to that.
Whoa. If you want content quickly many apps will offer it in widgets. Many will show you notifications with ability to interact with them without even opening the app.
There is nothing instant about websites.
My point was: There's no problem with casually checking out a website. But I'm probably not gonna install an app unless I'm pretty sure it offers me some value. Not rational? Possibly :)
Similar, but web pages are usable before fully "installed". Data has repeated shown that users quickly abandon websites that don't load extremely fast. Apps are like that, but even slower.
It's simple, when you want to do X, you want to do X, you don't want to do a lot of setup work before you start doing X.
In what world native apps are slower than web apps?
And where do you find "extremely fast" websites, with all this JS frameworks crap and gazillion of trackers being pushed to your poor browser?
How is this fixed by a web app you have to remember the address for, or at best, remember where on your favorites you saved it?