[jessriedel]

I absolutely have given up on trying to buy something from them because their mobile app crashed, which is the kind of thing that could be due to them mindlessly lashing together a bunch of app frameworks rather than building something streamlines. I've also given up when trying to do something really simple like set precise price filters that are bafflingly not available on mobile.

[IgorPartola]

Crashes are not what we are talking about here.

[jessriedel]

My comment that started the sub-thread you are replying to specifically generalized the question, and I did so because I think app size, stability, and general well-built-ness are tightly connected.

> I get why smaller companies use generic janky frameworks to throw up an app quickly and keep maintenance costs down. But why doesn't Amazon have the most streamlined and elegant app on the planet? They have the resources, expertise, and scale for it to make sense to invest heavily.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30613893#30614531

Another way to say this: the root reason for app bloat is something that causes general app badness, so the question "Why is the app so bloated?" is not well explained by your implied answer "Because users do not reduce purchases on account of app size".

[IgorPartola]

Fair. And for what it’s worth I would very much like for the app stores to penalize apps that are bloated. Institute a 20MB limit on the app size unless it’s a paid app or has specifically applied for a large app permission and justified why it needs more storage. That would drive developers away from bloat.

But I think large apps and apps that crash frequently is correlated but not strongly. I have never seen Amazon crash. I have seen 4MB apps crash. Bloat by itself just means I have to buy a more expensive phone to fit everything I want, which sucks but isn’t the end of the world.