HN is an outlier because there's no business model or team of OSS maintainers with motivation to improve it. I can't think of any other sites I visit in the same position.
It's not the only example though, just the one with the widest disparity. Reddit and Tumblr are also both considerably worse experiences on their mobile sites than their apps, assuming you know enough to get the good apps.
I just keep hearing posts about how the mobile web is so clearly superior to apps and it never tallies with the reality on the ground for me.
I just keep hearing posts about how the mobile web is so clearly superior to apps and it never tallies with the reality on the ground for me.