alt Hacker NewsI wonder what the numbers say about desktop applications now, and how much the arrival of Electron changed things up here.
Nowadays, it seems to be that mobile apps have the "best metrics" for b2c software. I'd be interested to read a contemporary version of this article.
Replies
hermitcrab • yesterday at 4:14 PM
Some of us are still making a living from desktop apps, 17 years later.
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yshamrei • yesterday at 4:13 PM
In 2026, the number of mobile applications in the App Store and Google Play increased by 60% year over year, largely because entry into the market has become much easier thanks to AI.
stackghost • yesterday at 4:20 PM
Electron is the worst of both worlds. I have never paid for an Electron app, and never will. Horrid UX.
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“Metrics”
This reminds me of a past job working for an e-commerce company. This wasn’t a store like Amazon that “everyone” uses weekly, it was a specific pricey fashion brand. They had put out a shitty iOS app, which was just a very bare-bones wrapper around the website. But they raved about how much better the conversion rate rates were there. Nobody would listen to me about how the customers that bother downloading a specific app for shopping at a particular retailer are obviously just superfans so of course that self-selected group converts well.
So many people who should be smart based on their job titles and salaries, got the causation completely backwards!