Developers should prioritize web pages over apps for delivering HTML content to ensure broader accessibility and reduce costs.

> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”! Software companies are happy to make their lives harder (and more expensive: deploying to the big app stores isn’t free!), in order to deliver HTML content to fewer people and with fewer features https://danq.me/2026/07/09/your-app-could-have-been-a-webpage/ #WebDev #Programming

“Some people like an “app”, and that’s… fine, I guess. But some apps could have been a webpage. And especially where, like this one, the content they deliver is already written in HTML and delivered over HTTP… they should be a webpage, right? I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”! Software companies are happy to make their lives harder (and more expensive: deploying to the big app stores isn’t free!), in order to deliver HTML content to fewer people and with fewer features than if they just published directly to the Web in the first place! There are (some) tasks for which an “app” is absolutely the right choice of medium. Travelbound is not one of them. But at least I (and the rest of our group, whom I’ve shared it with) now get the choice about how we access this content. Either a 43MB app (ballooning to 124MB when it’s finished downloading extra content) with tracking and advertisements… or a 0.05MB web page (with an optional extra 35MB of images) that provides more features and works on more devices. I know which one I’ll be using!” https://danq.me/2026/07/09/your-app-could-have-been-a-webpage/ #Web #MobileApp #Apps #WalledGardens #OpenWeb