You limit the capabilities of the web apps, like not allowing notifications from websites.
PWAs make use of in-browser APIs that enable native-app-like features. For example, a service worker (i.e. the Service Worker API [0]) enables us to build offline-first web apps. Other examples include the Payment Request [1], Web NFC [2], Notifications [3], Web Speech [4], Contact Picker proposal [5] and more. Google and Apple can choose what they support and could remove APIs from their popular browsers. I think removing APIs is rare because browsers generally care about backwards compatibility but one notable exception is the sunsetting of Flash.
I'm no expert but I think Google is betting on PWAs succeeding (or at least sees them as inevitable) and is trying to put themselves in the best position for when/if it succeeds. For example, ChromeOS supports PWAs and Chrome shipped APIs, that could be useful when building PWAs, that aren't supported in other browsers (e.g. the Web OTP API might be coming to Chrome soon [6] and makes inputting 2FA codes from SMS real quick). I'd be surprised if Google tried to "shutdown" PWAs. However, if PWAs were to succeed then we wouldn't rely on native app stores as much as we do today and that could mean the end of the Google/Apple duopoly on mobile operating systems. I wrote a short post about this on my personal website [7].
[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Service_Wor...
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Payment_Req...
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API
[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Notificatio...
[4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_...
[5] https://wicg.github.io/contact-api/spec/
[6] https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/chrome-84-beta-web-otp-web...
[7] https://konaraddi.com/writing/2019/2019-01-06-pwas-could-hel...
This is because those who think these solutions will change things have no idea where the problem is coming from. Basically they are solving the wrong problem. They must first sit down and think hard about why it is that Apple and Google have so much power. It's because they have built products people can't live without on a daily basis (Android and iPhone)
PWA won't get you anywhere because at the end of the day your success is still at the mercy of those platform providers. Currently Google and Apple just let them be because they're just cute experiments that don't threaten their business model. But when it does become threatening, they may easily shut down access to PWAs overnight and there's nothing we can do about it other than bitching on public forums like HN.
The point is, if you want to beat Google or Apple you need to start from a platform that doesn't rely on them at all. PWA completely fails there.
> Some interesting innovation might be Dapps inside the Coinbase Wallet or Status IM. What are some reasons it is futile to take on this marketplace.
For the same reason, this "DAPP" is even sillier. Unless these "DAPP" guys are going to build their own device, at the end of the day they still rely on iOS and Android for their users to interact with their "Decentralized" app. What a joke.
The solution is not about building a "decentralized app store" or "fight against Apple and Google". It's about building something that comes out of nowhere and disrupts the current status quo in ways never expected. No other way around it.