I'm not sure they prefer it. I think tech companies have been pushing apps as the default solution for a long time and people accept it because they just want to do whatever thing is locked behind the app.

If the default was something else I suspect people would accept that too, especially if it was lower friction.

I'd say typing a few characters into an address bar (or scanning a QR code) is, at the least, not higher friction than downloading an app and creating an account.