[finiteseries]

~90% of the average site’s mobile traffic, as a rule, comes from in-app browsers.

Mobile users, as a rule, rarely open an internet browser, they are redirected there.

It’s become a glorified zen-mode type feature for articles or indie web stores at this point for a substantial part of the population, especially young people, at least on iOS.

This is a huge reason why “Open this in our app!1!” is a thing as well. The alternative isn’t browsing a mobile site through Safari, it’s using whatever social media app led you there in the first place.

[spideymans]

>This is a huge reason why “Open this in our app!1!” is a thing as well. The alternative isn’t browsing a mobile site through Safari, it’s using whatever social media app led you there in the first place.

Yes. The popularity of Instagram and Pinterest for shopping is a direct reflection of how relatively hostile the web is from a UX perspective. I often find myself using Pinterest, rather than the web, to browse retailers, because it's typically a better experience. This is rather precarious situation for retailers to be in, imo, as it means that Pinterest/Instagram effectively become gatekeepers to their stores.

From this perspective, it's no wonder why these stores keep begging users to install their apps. I'm sure Ikea would much rather me use the Ikea app than Pinterest.

However, I don't think every store needs or should have an app. I wonder if it's possible to deploy boilerplate native app experiences, that don't require these retailers to have a whole native development team.

[rchaud]

> The popularity of Instagram and Pinterest for shopping is a direct reflection of how relatively hostile the web is from a UX perspective.

You may be conflating two different things. IG and Pinterest are private firms with a financial interest in adding a big "SHOP" button to user-generated content. "The web" is not a monolith, so not all sites will be shopping-oriented. That means you may have to use a search engine if you want to find stuff to shop for. Pinterest can be one of those search engines.

[RugnirViking]

wait... you're legitimately the first person I have ever heard of actually intentionally using pinterest. As far as I was concerned, it was entirely useless SEO garbage that infested google images...

[theK]

So mobile OSes allow App authors to force a worse and more insecure browser model upon their users, sure. Those still are browsers using the web. The fact that they are wrapped in something doesn't invalidate the fact that the web is being used as intended.