| Bandwidth is not the only factor affecting the thick/thin client economics [2] Compute is the big factor , unless your app needs fast load times to make money like e-commerce, cmses etc the trade off of paying for additional compute on the server side is not worth it .[1] Today the browser handles most of the app and Auth state token refreshes, inflating data into an UI, a lot of the validations , all these components on the server costs more compute cycles which someone has to pay for. If is always cheaper for the user than application developer , the app developer is renting every cycle compared to the user who has already bought a powerful device Same reason Stadia and similar stacks have hard time proving their economic viability, if they are not able to create a large enough market of users who will not buy a high end device but will be ready to pay for a sub for somewhat poorer experience then they fail . Also from development point of view you would need to likely maintain a separate API anyway for your native mobile apps , building a server rendered [1] app and API is not worth the development cost usually. [1] SSR and various hydration tooling blur this line ever in favor of SPAs but I am ignoring that to keep the point simple [2] hardly everyone has always on 5G or fiber access in developed G-20 economies let alone the world , YouTube and dozens app charge for downloading for a reason |