Here's what I would do.
1. Make it QR code scanning instead of tapping so it can be a PWA.
2. Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good).
3. Save yourself a lot of money by building it on top of the Nostr protocol. Run a relay yourself if you want guaranteed reliability. Run a Blossom server for media. Use email for auth and store people's keys for them if you want a traditional UX. Don't worry about what's on Nostr already, just build your own thing on the protocol.
Let people come and go as they please and don't lock them in. They will love you for it later.
Cool project. Have fun!
> Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good).
I’ve worked on a platform for social media apps. When the social network had a native iOS app, a native Android app, and a PWA, users chose iOS about two thirds of the time, Android about a quarter of the time, and PWA about 10% of the time. That’s across all users, including desktop, so the PWA actually had an unfair advantage.
People strongly prefer native apps to PWAs, especially for social media.
Could it be you are pushing your native app? Maybe for more control to advertising in your app, tracking, etc. Keep those nasty ad blockers out.
> People strongly prefer native apps to PWAs
Such a conclusion cannot reasonably be made from the data you have presented. It merely means that your web app was not preferred over your native app.
If somebody wouldn't even bother to download an app for a social network they probably wouldn't stick around for very long either
What about the opposite situation? I'm not installing an app without first having taken a look at what the network has to offer.
Yes, of course some people will feel that way, but also having less friction is not always necessarily a good thing because it requires less of a time investment for the user to get started, so therefore they are actually more likely to just churn. It is a balance
Nobody wants to install an app?
I always avoid apps if I can.
But yeah, that comment is a bit disconnected to majority of the population.
I’m not saying that I disagree personally, but for most folks, installing an app does not cross any line in the sand
Granted, there's a lot of crap apps out there. But properly built apps are a world apart from your typical PWA's or web sites (or even really good ones)
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We’re not normies, so take that with a grain of salt. Here’s mine: apps have access to significantly expanded capabilities which has privacy implications. If I can use the browser for a given app, I do it. Amazon for example.
As a native app writer, this has been my experience.
Mentioning it here, though, tends to get pushback from folks that write Web apps. They don’t want to admit that native apps have more capabilities than Web apps; even if that’s a bad thing, because of security risks.
lol I was going to say this too! I think the inverse is true: nobody wants to install a PWA
People say PWAs are good as apps now and feels like an app now, personally as ab armchair nobody I doubt the retention rate actually compare, even if the app was literally just a plain WebView.
Personally I'll only install FOSS apps on my phone and I go out of my way to actively discourage (to varying degrees of success) my relatives from installing arbitrary junk that they surely don't need on their phones.
Same here, if it's on F-Droid I'll install it, otherwise I'm using the mobile site on my browser.
Yeah that’s a weird comment. I don’t want a PWA. I want a normal app. Users want apps.
I have a handful of 3rd party apps on my phone and none on my computer. Prefer to just use browser.
If it requires Play Store, I will only put it on my work phone.
After a quick search, there is an NFC web API, but with no general support https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API
That’s empirically wrong. All statistics say that people do install apps way more than PWA
Do you install a hacker news app?
> 1. Make it QR code scanning instead of tapping so it can be a PWA.
Misses the point completely. The entire idea is that this enforces in-person meetings, which QR codes do not.
You could make the qr code extremely short lived, like 2 seconds or so.
one could video call and scan
If one is going through the hassle of joining a video call on a different device to then scan it with their smartphone, all to just connect with another person, you could reasonably assume that they're friends.
Maybe if there's a "celebrity" that displays it on a live stream, that's a bigger issue, but there could be other mechanisms to dissuade this behaviour. Perhaps you could only add one friend with one QR code.