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"[T]he biggest culprit of the slow demise of the Web as we knew it has been the rise of the app economy. The first thing most large commercial websites will do when you try to access them on a mobile device is to open up a notification encouraging you to install their app. Why stay on the scary open Web when you can be viewing the same content on their safe walled garden? So people switched, and kept on switching until the Web on mobile is practically an extinct creature. 60% of all Web traffic comes from mobile devices, but people are using apps and not the browser on their phones, and 88% of all time spent on the phone is on apps and not on the Web. Sure, that includes games and all sorts of other applications, but the reality is that the old Web is a dying environment.
Add to that the fact that websites have become ugly behemoths filled with cookie banners and pop-ups, and you will see that the move to apps makes a lot of sense. The advantage of the app for developers is evident: higher retention, more control, and most importantly, higher capability of gathering user data that can then be resold to the highest bidder.
The consequences of this shift are far more profound than mere inconvenience. As the open Web recedes, we are witnessing the slow death of digital serendipity, that peculiar joy of stumbling across unexpected information or communities whilst wandering through hyperlinks. Apps create isolated silos of content, algorithmically curated and commercially optimised. This fragmentation erodes the decentralised nature of information access that characterised the early Web.
(...)
Perhaps most concerning is what this means for future generations who will never know the Web as it was."
#OpenWeb #AppEconomy #AppStores #Decentralization
https://www.technollama.co.uk/the-appstore-killed-the-website-star
