I think you contradicted yourself. If a tool provides better value for the time spent for a company, I don’t understand how you can call it objectively bad.

You can say it’s objectively bad from a technical perspective, but clearly that’s only one part of the equation.

▲

shiflett 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think they were speaking as a user. These tools create inferior products. (Still not technically objective, but true nonetheless.)

That doesn't mean companies should necessarily avoid them. As a user, I always want the best possible user experience, but a company can't prioritize that above all else, and I know that.

▲

wredcoll 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I am so tired of existing react/electron applications being compared against imaginary, hypothetical "native" applications.

Like, it's fine to criticize something, "this component doesn't follow the OS's UI guidelines" or "this scrollbar disappears when the mouse isn't over it which is a bad UX" or whatever, but this generic "oh this is bad but if it was rewritten it would be perfect" is annoying.

▲

pessimizer 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's always the preference of people defending bad decisions to compare them to doing nothing.

What you're seeing is people actually making that case instead of forcing it. They're saying that if the app wouldn't exist without this bad thing, then it is appropriate to compare using the bad thing to doing nothing.

You just seem to be demanding that people not mention other ways to do things, or you'll get angry.

▲

joefourier 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The app not existing would unironically be better in so many instances, though. The web version doesn’t take up 1GB of disk space, install persistent services, send you push notifications by default, and it’s trivial to block ads in comparison.

I’d be very happy if companies didn’t artificially degrade their web version to force installation of an “app” that’s effectively a web browser in disguise.

	▲	xp84 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hard agree. Day by day, I become more exhausted with "apps" as they are currently delivered, with native being slightly better than cross-plaform, but not good. Apps in 2026 deliver all the disadvantages of a plain ol' website (Requires an always-on WAN to have any function whatsoever, UI that doesn't meld with the OS in any way, no integration with things like Shortcuts...) but add huge real costs: Extra time before I can start using it, the hogging of easily 500-1000MB of disk space on day 1, a growing un-clearable cache, sluggish transitions with useless animations, and the need to be "updated" on a regular basis (whether used or not) wasting my time and bandwidth. One of the few benefits to me as the user of a 'client application' has always been that a well-made app uses an API to speak to the server which is dramatically lower bandwidth than the modern BloatWeb with AdTech™ stack could ever match, which ought to enable the highest performance. But it seems like they rarely actually deliver that benefit.

▲

1123581321 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not the OP, but my understanding (and I agree) is that it can seem like a better value when a subset of factors are considered (ones that IT can measure, biases in IT against Apple etc.) and it leads the company into making a choice that is worse for them overall.

▲

ToucanLoucan 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's objectively bad because of how hot my phone is.

It's subjectively bad because it's an embarrassment. Like you're seriously going to tell me something like Discord, worth 15 BILLION, cannot afford native apps? Spare me.

▲

0cf8612b2e1e 6 hours ago | parent [-]

What really grinds my gears is Microsoft replacing native apps with Electron. Trillion dollar company who is so cash strapped they have no choice but to punt to the easy development path.

▲

cosmic_cheese 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The thing that makes Microsoft's case particularly annoying is that they have demonstrated how they can develop half-decent Electron apps with VS Code, but have simply elected not to with anything that's not VS Code.

Like yes, I'd prefer native and MS can certainly afford to take that path, but they can't even be bothered to make sure that most of their Electron apps land on the upper half of the quality spectrum.

▲

skydhash 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> they can develop half-decent Electron apps with VS Code,

Only if you don't compare it with any native or quasi native editors like Notepad++ or Sublime text. And Emacs has been cross-platform for decades.

	▲	ToucanLoucan 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Also they bloated it to death. VSCodium gets you the same solid core app without the oodles and oodles of useless "features" Microsoft has bolted to it.

▲

xp84 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yikes. What apps have they been doing this with?

	▲	0cf8612b2e1e 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Turns out I was mistaken. Outlook was rewritten for Webview, not Electron. So still took a native application and turned it into web nonsense, but I got the specifics wrong. Regardless, there are a bunch of new visual glitches in the release, with regressed performance all over the place.

▲

ToucanLoucan 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's extra egregious there is I do understand the logic because developing for Windows is such a fucking nightmare, that they're also responsible for.

	▲	xp84 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I assure you, developing for competing platforms is also a fucking nightmare... that's something Microsoft has no monopoly on!