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Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by eridius on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @06:30PM (#20630322)
Ignoring advertising for a moment, mobile apps are first-class clients, whereas mobile websites frequently aren't. Mobile websites are usually stripped-down experiences, and the company doesn't want to invest the effort in turning the mobile website into a first-class client because most of the users are on the mobile app. It's easier to just funnel people into the app, which is also much more likely to get the user to come back (now they have the app on their home screen, the site can send notifications, etc)
Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by MereInterest on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @11:48PM (#20631849)
That seems entirely circular. The mobile website is poorly made, so people use the mobile app, so the mobile website is neglected. I can understand why the mobile app gains dominance after the cycle starts. The question is more why this cycle starts.
Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by eridius on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @02:29AM (#20632400)
People are going to use the mobile app regardless. It's the first-class experience for mobile. People don't use the app because the website is poor; people simply use the app.

Or to put it another way, Yelp would be rightfully lambasted for not having a mobile app. Having a mobile app is table stakes for a site like Yelp. And if you've got all this engineering effort going towards a mobile app, why double your workload by also building a first-class mobile site? The mobile site just needs to be functional enough to satisfy the basic needs of casual users.

Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by MereInterest on Thursday August 08, 2019 @12:29PM (#20645977)
I think that was my main annoyance when Google removed the "merge tabs and apps" feature in 2016. With that feature, a shortcut to a webpage was a first-class experience that worked nicely with the app switcher.