5 ms·

Ask HN: Why do people say that mobile apps are dying?

25 points by moomoo11 4y ago

Granted, I hear this mostly by people in "web3" but is this true? What is your experience, because I think that we're still just getting started with what's possible in the mobile apps space.

swah 4y ago
Some trend that they make much bigger than it actually is...
xet7 4y ago
Web3 is already dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTc0IstWISY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTc0IstWISY
- GianFabien 4y ago
  With looming energy shortages all energy wasting proof of work methods, e.g. blockchain, web3, etc will face increasing costs and potential risks of being outlawed. AFAIK it's already happening in Texas and China.
smt88 4y ago
Cost of user acquisition for native apps is enormous. Most people install very few apps per month, and the vast majority uninstall them afterward. "Utility apps" (messengers, banking apps, etc.) do OK if the user must use them. All other types of apps are competing against the few big social apps and games that are more than adequate for most users.
- throwaway-blaze 4y ago
  The flip side of this: the App Store duopoly has made app subscriptions painless for customers, and if your app has a dedicated group of users it can be quite profitable.
- muzani 4y ago
  I thought it's the opposite. The app stores are a marketing channel. It's easier to advertise a game or recipe app than a web game or recipe site.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Is advertising recipe app is easier than recipe website? I think opposite. Recipe sites are often found by recipe search on web, but I never downloaded recipe app from app store when I want to cook something.
    - muzani 4y ago
      I say this from experience doing both. It's the user behaviour. Google searches also direct people to the app if done on an Android device. In developing countries, a lot of people don't own a PC, so digital stuff is through a low end phone which doesn't have the memory to run Chrome, lol. It's strong enough that apps are a part of the marketing strategy, especially if it involves digital purchases. Sites are good for previews, apps for monetization. It could well be different for US, which is iOS heavy, or the HN crowd which prefers to avoid Google. Americans are more likely to have a credit card, including minors. In developing countries, a lot of people still transfer money via an ATM. A housewife might go to the store, reload $25 into her phone, use only $5 of that for calls, and the rest is transferred into Google Play credit to buy e-books or in app purchases.
      - fomine3 4y ago
        Yes I sometimes download recipe app from advertisement on recipe sites. Recipe sites push app aggressively. So I think app store isn't good marketing channel to find recipe app, but just a repository.
        muzani 4y ago
        Actually, I stand corrected. It used to be that Google would rank apps high on a Google search 5 years ago. It no longer does. This was the typical user acquisition strategy - get people into the app, then have a site with deeplinking for sharing stuff to the public, like what Instagram and TikTok does. This is no longer valid today.
  - smt88 4y ago
    Ads for either apps or websites are expensive. Ads for websites convert much better because there's a lot less friction for each conversion. It's easy to get people to click "Login with Google". It's much harder to get them to click "Install".
zamadatix 4y ago
Depends what is meant by "dead". Mobile apps aren't going to stop being made and existing good apps aren't going to suddenly stop being useful. That said if you look at the numbers I think we're starting to get to the other side of the S curve of app revenue and download rates. At the same time there is more competition than ever due to barrier to entry being basically nothing these days. To some the lack of "forever going to be going to the moon" may seem like dead, to others it may seem very much alive and healthy without that.
fuckcensorship 4y ago
It’s less about Web3 and more about web apps being a superior solution to mobile apps in most cases.
- mekster 4y ago
  It's not superior, but web apps are adequate enough for most use and the development time can be shortened not to bother with 2 other implementations, and don't bring up cross platform solutions as they're always imperfect.
tryptophan 4y ago
I think its more that mobile app economics are dead due to the google/apple app store duopoly. Their fat cuts of all sales make a lot of businesses quite hard to pull off. Plus, you need to be in constant fear of getting randomly banned for one reason or another (or no reason at all really). It just isn't an attractive place for developers. Companies (especially large ones that dominate the top50 charts) see their mobile apps as costs so they don't really care about making money there.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  The real problem is that there are already so many apps out there, it is really hard to get customer’s attention without spending a lot of money or being a well know publisher (who probably spends a lot of money)
muzani 4y ago
App development here peaked some 4-8 years ago, dipped for a bit when RN came out, and it's entering a new generation. I think it goes about in waves where people make mobile sites and think that's enough, then realize that the direct hardware and lifecycle access is actually pretty important after spending a few months wrestling with certain edge cases. And then go overboard with it. The cycles might happen in different periods of time in different ecosystems, but they also seem to be anchored around technology.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  What is RN?
  - muzani 4y ago
    React Native. Not literally when it was released, but when it was popular enough to be a serious option.
ksaj 4y ago
New app technologies might be dying a bit, but new apps themselves sure are not. Every restaurant you can think of has their own app these days. And "Try our new App and get <some incentive>!" is definitely not a rare thing to see in the junk mail flyers.
- jpindar 4y ago
  Same with supermarkets and big box stores. Some of them have features such as scanning the barcode to get more info about a product.
  - ksaj 4y ago
    Exactly. Also Canadian Tire (one of Canada's OG big box stores) has been rolling out an app whereby if you locate what you want in the app, it'll tell you exactly where to find the item(s) once you're inside the store. That's actually genuinely useful.
pedalpete 4y ago
Mobile apps are "dead" in the same way web apps are. The average mobile app gets opened 1 time. People have enough apps on there phone, they don't go browsing in the app store for the new new thing anymore. It doesn't mean that people won't use apps, but the selling feature of your product being an app has no meaning any longer. For almost all companies, it's table stakes, if you expect people to use your app on the go. When Uber came out, being able to leverage the tech in a mobile app is what made the app possible. So that was a huge selling point of the company. There is almost no new capabilities in phones today that allow new experiences. So, yes, people will still develop apps. Apps themselves are not dead. The web is not dead. Web3 will be a thing, and will change some of how these things operate, but for it to truly work, I think the average person won't understand the difference between their web3 apps and their mobile/web apps.
Madmallard 4y ago
At least in the mobile game space they're all review botted reskins of thinly veiled gambling machines with basically zero artistic passion behind them I haven't used a "new" mobile app in quite a long time must be something to that as well
seydor 4y ago
Because everything will shift to the web , for the Nth time
- soganess 4y ago
  I only want to subtlety modify this statement that I wholeheartedly agree with. There are a bunch of mobile apps that have no business being native apps (at least by modern sensibility). We are simply course-correcting all that nonsense back to the web. There was this growing pain where mobile native apps provided a tangible improvement in UX (both in being more performant and by doing stuff that wasn't easily possible) over webapps. Devices were slow and web tech immature. Both those statements are now false(or at least less true). Unless you are interfacing with hardware, dealing with medical assurances, or pushing the boundary of 3D... you don't really need to be native. Webapps fit the mobile bill nicely and are more multiplatform. It just makes sense. Of course this is just personal experience, but I was doing mobile before the iphone supported native and wrote one of the first native iphone apps.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
GianFabien 4y ago
I think that the mobile app market is saturated. There seems to be multiple choices for no matter what you are looking for. The banking, ride sharing, home sharing, meal delivery, etc areas are in the grip of the corresponding providers. There are thousands of games available. In this environment it is extremely hard to define a market that has sufficient potential to make the development and support costs provide a suitable ROI.

25 points by moomoo11 4y ago

Granted, I hear this mostly by people in "web3" but is this true? What is your experience, because I think that we're still just getting started with what's possible in the mobile apps space.

swah 4y ago

Some trend that they make much bigger than it actually is...

xet7 4y ago

Web3 is already dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTc0IstWISY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTc0IstWISY

GianFabien 4y ago
With looming energy shortages all energy wasting proof of work methods, e.g. blockchain, web3, etc will face increasing costs and potential risks of being outlawed. AFAIK it's already happening in Texas and China.

smt88 4y ago

Cost of user acquisition for native apps is enormous. Most people install very few apps per month, and the vast majority uninstall them afterward. "Utility apps" (messengers, banking apps, etc.) do OK if the user must use them. All other types of apps are competing against the few big social apps and games that are more than adequate for most users.

throwaway-blaze 4y ago
The flip side of this: the App Store duopoly has made app subscriptions painless for customers, and if your app has a dedicated group of users it can be quite profitable.
muzani 4y ago
I thought it's the opposite. The app stores are a marketing channel. It's easier to advertise a game or recipe app than a web game or recipe site.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Is advertising recipe app is easier than recipe website? I think opposite. Recipe sites are often found by recipe search on web, but I never downloaded recipe app from app store when I want to cook something.
  - muzani 4y ago
    I say this from experience doing both. It's the user behaviour. Google searches also direct people to the app if done on an Android device. In developing countries, a lot of people don't own a PC, so digital stuff is through a low end phone which doesn't have the memory to run Chrome, lol. It's strong enough that apps are a part of the marketing strategy, especially if it involves digital purchases. Sites are good for previews, apps for monetization. It could well be different for US, which is iOS heavy, or the HN crowd which prefers to avoid Google. Americans are more likely to have a credit card, including minors. In developing countries, a lot of people still transfer money via an ATM. A housewife might go to the store, reload $25 into her phone, use only $5 of that for calls, and the rest is transferred into Google Play credit to buy e-books or in app purchases.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      Yes I sometimes download recipe app from advertisement on recipe sites. Recipe sites push app aggressively. So I think app store isn't good marketing channel to find recipe app, but just a repository.
      - muzani 4y ago
        Actually, I stand corrected. It used to be that Google would rank apps high on a Google search 5 years ago. It no longer does. This was the typical user acquisition strategy - get people into the app, then have a site with deeplinking for sharing stuff to the public, like what Instagram and TikTok does. This is no longer valid today.
- smt88 4y ago
  Ads for either apps or websites are expensive. Ads for websites convert much better because there's a lot less friction for each conversion. It's easy to get people to click "Login with Google". It's much harder to get them to click "Install".

zamadatix 4y ago

Depends what is meant by "dead". Mobile apps aren't going to stop being made and existing good apps aren't going to suddenly stop being useful. That said if you look at the numbers I think we're starting to get to the other side of the S curve of app revenue and download rates. At the same time there is more competition than ever due to barrier to entry being basically nothing these days. To some the lack of "forever going to be going to the moon" may seem like dead, to others it may seem very much alive and healthy without that.

fuckcensorship 4y ago

It’s less about Web3 and more about web apps being a superior solution to mobile apps in most cases.

mekster 4y ago
It's not superior, but web apps are adequate enough for most use and the development time can be shortened not to bother with 2 other implementations, and don't bring up cross platform solutions as they're always imperfect.

tryptophan 4y ago

I think its more that mobile app economics are dead due to the google/apple app store duopoly. Their fat cuts of all sales make a lot of businesses quite hard to pull off. Plus, you need to be in constant fear of getting randomly banned for one reason or another (or no reason at all really). It just isn't an attractive place for developers. Companies (especially large ones that dominate the top50 charts) see their mobile apps as costs so they don't really care about making money there.

Tagbert 4y ago
The real problem is that there are already so many apps out there, it is really hard to get customer’s attention without spending a lot of money or being a well know publisher (who probably spends a lot of money)

muzani 4y ago

App development here peaked some 4-8 years ago, dipped for a bit when RN came out, and it's entering a new generation. I think it goes about in waves where people make mobile sites and think that's enough, then realize that the direct hardware and lifecycle access is actually pretty important after spending a few months wrestling with certain edge cases. And then go overboard with it. The cycles might happen in different periods of time in different ecosystems, but they also seem to be anchored around technology.

marssaxman 4y ago
What is RN?
- muzani 4y ago
  React Native. Not literally when it was released, but when it was popular enough to be a serious option.

ksaj 4y ago

New app technologies might be dying a bit, but new apps themselves sure are not. Every restaurant you can think of has their own app these days. And "Try our new App and get <some incentive>!" is definitely not a rare thing to see in the junk mail flyers.

jpindar 4y ago
Same with supermarkets and big box stores. Some of them have features such as scanning the barcode to get more info about a product.
- ksaj 4y ago
  Exactly. Also Canadian Tire (one of Canada's OG big box stores) has been rolling out an app whereby if you locate what you want in the app, it'll tell you exactly where to find the item(s) once you're inside the store. That's actually genuinely useful.

pedalpete 4y ago

Mobile apps are "dead" in the same way web apps are. The average mobile app gets opened 1 time. People have enough apps on there phone, they don't go browsing in the app store for the new new thing anymore. It doesn't mean that people won't use apps, but the selling feature of your product being an app has no meaning any longer. For almost all companies, it's table stakes, if you expect people to use your app on the go. When Uber came out, being able to leverage the tech in a mobile app is what made the app possible. So that was a huge selling point of the company. There is almost no new capabilities in phones today that allow new experiences. So, yes, people will still develop apps. Apps themselves are not dead. The web is not dead. Web3 will be a thing, and will change some of how these things operate, but for it to truly work, I think the average person won't understand the difference between their web3 apps and their mobile/web apps.

Madmallard 4y ago

At least in the mobile game space they're all review botted reskins of thinly veiled gambling machines with basically zero artistic passion behind them I haven't used a "new" mobile app in quite a long time must be something to that as well

seydor 4y ago

Because everything will shift to the web , for the Nth time

soganess 4y ago
I only want to subtlety modify this statement that I wholeheartedly agree with. There are a bunch of mobile apps that have no business being native apps (at least by modern sensibility). We are simply course-correcting all that nonsense back to the web. There was this growing pain where mobile native apps provided a tangible improvement in UX (both in being more performant and by doing stuff that wasn't easily possible) over webapps. Devices were slow and web tech immature. Both those statements are now false(or at least less true). Unless you are interfacing with hardware, dealing with medical assurances, or pushing the boundary of 3D... you don't really need to be native. Webapps fit the mobile bill nicely and are more multiplatform. It just makes sense. Of course this is just personal experience, but I was doing mobile before the iphone supported native and wrote one of the first native iphone apps.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

GianFabien 4y ago

I think that the mobile app market is saturated. There seems to be multiple choices for no matter what you are looking for. The banking, ride sharing, home sharing, meal delivery, etc areas are in the grip of the corresponding providers. There are thousands of games available. In this environment it is extremely hard to define a market that has sufficient potential to make the development and support costs provide a suitable ROI.