Discovery and monetization. Both suck
for web apps right now
Somehow products like Smugmug, GitHub, Basecamp haven't had this problem. There are easy ways for discovery, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and plain word-of-mouth. There's also an easy way for monetization -- it's called Paypal Websites Standard. I myself discovered this link by coming here, to HN.
That's the beauty of an open web.
Knowledge that the browser installing
the app supports a common set of standards
Easily checkable by other means.
You're basically trying to redefine the problem to fit the solution.
It doesn't work like that - App Stores are only useful for the platform provider, keeping that provider as an intermediary between the developer and his customers, getting a share of the revenue. The Internet changed that and now platform providers (e.g. older like Apple, Microsoft and newer, like Amazon, Google) are now fighting back.
And the situation is exactly as in the old days of IExplorer - when devs developed for IE because they had consistency and it was the most popular browser anyway.
> That's an UI problem easily fixable by browsers.
Not as easily solved as using the app model.
> That's the beauty of an open web.
And that's never going away. But there's a reason devs are all over iOS and Android right now, and not making web apps that are much easier to make cross-platform.
> Easily checkable by other means.
Not as easily, though. Nor as intuitively.
> You're basically trying to redefine the problem to fit the solution.
Me? I'm not working on the Web Store team.
The solution is much-needed and is several years late. Google Maps and Gmail basically launched the web app wave, only for all the innovation to happen in mobile operating systems. It's time to bring those innovations to the browsers and make browsers the preeminent platform once again, which is what the web app and app store model seeks to accomplish.
IMHO, I think the reason for devs liking iOS is because iOS represents a distribution channel for shitty/low-budget apps, with low customers expectations, customers that also have credit cards.
But the gold-rush is going to end at some point, when the Top 50 chart is going to be dominated by the likes of EA Games and Blizzard.
Well, yes. It should be the goal of every platform to have a healthy developer ecosystem, so that the largest amount of devs can make some money. Just like in a country's economy, the goal should be to push the average quality of life higher.
That's the beauty of an open web.
Easily checkable by other means.You're basically trying to redefine the problem to fit the solution.
It doesn't work like that - App Stores are only useful for the platform provider, keeping that provider as an intermediary between the developer and his customers, getting a share of the revenue. The Internet changed that and now platform providers (e.g. older like Apple, Microsoft and newer, like Amazon, Google) are now fighting back.
And the situation is exactly as in the old days of IExplorer - when devs developed for IE because they had consistency and it was the most popular browser anyway.