The site not being online may be embarrassing from a risk management standpoint, but the app being censored from Apple Store and Google Play Store prevents them from having a meaningful presence ever again anyway.
People are already conditioned to need a web browser to view adult content, and if you are an adult content platform, your competitors are also missing from app store as well.
This doesn't work out the same for social media. Doubly so because a social media platform benefits from integrations like notifications which are missing from iOS Safari.
And if they want it bad enough they'll start going somewhere new. Which is why most of the synthetic recreational drug crowd learned how to use tor and gets their product delivered in a little bubble wrap envelope that says "agricultural chemicals" on it.
They have a Progressive Web App, which should be able to be loaded up and a home screen shortcut just like any app would. But it's not straight forward for Android (Parler users were trying to explain how to do it to each other with hilarious results), and I believe on Apple it can't be done.
There have been called for regulating how Apple and Google protect their app stores after Parler was pulled, but I don't think that's the solution. The solution is getting them to integrate PWAs into their ecosystem. They don't want to, because it draws from their app store revenue.
If parler users believe it is important to them and to society as they say... what's the problem with just opening up a web browser and going to parler.com anyway? That's too big a burden for something so vitally important to it's users?
I mean, don't get me wrong, I get that there are issues with corporate monopoly control of communication. And there are some things that will only work well as an app, not as a web page. But... parler really isn't one of them? Oh no we have to go to a bookmark in a browser instead of having an app or even an icon on a homepage... seems like a weird complaint when they are also saying access to parler is so vitally important. What's the big deal? I mostly access facebook and twitter this way on my android phone already.
This is such a weird line of assertion that I wonder if you'd apply it in any other context.
The problem doesn't just exist for dedicated Parler die-hards. The problem exists for Parler trying to become a compelling platform at all among everyone else. And that problem exists for all Parler users including all the would-be users and all people trying to develop a following on Parler.
> Oh no we have to go to a bookmark in a browser instead of having an app or even an icon on a homepage
Sure, not a problem for Parler die-hards. Massive shortcoming for everyone else. iOS users can't even receive notifications from a website. Parler's target audience isn't just the people willing to jump through hoops. If you're someone trying to create content on Parler, your target audience isn't just people willing to remember to check their mobile browser every once in a while when every other app (incl Twitter) gives them real notifications.
You're saying that these obstacles either don't matter or they're inconsequential as long as your product is good, and you're sorely mistaken. You don't want to be lacking a notification system as a fledgling social media platform. Just consider how every time someone receives a "X replied to you" notification and returns to the app, how that enriches the entire platform.
Yes, i would and have. In my own participation in (left) political organizing, I don't believe that we can rely on corporations to make it convenient for us, and say so. To be sure, the corporations convenience/inconvenience matters. But the inconvenience of having to access the thing in a browser instead of an app??? This seems like nothing to me.
The site actually getting shut down entirely is of course a lot more significant, I see much more of a point there. It's complaining about "oh no it's just so hard to access it via a web browser instead of an app" that seems ridiculous to me -- if you are organizing against the system -- and it's pretty clear to me that's what parler was doing; I am opposed to the politics they were doing it from, but not to organizing against the system -- you should expect and prepare for attempts to suppress. If "oh no we have to access in a web browser instead of an app" is all you get, you are doing great.
> You don't want to be lacking a notification system as a fledgling social media platform. Just consider how every time someone receives a "X replied to you" notification and returns to the app, how that enriches the entire platform.
HN seems to have done fine without it :)
ps. please don't tell me that I am too dumb to find out how to turn them on.
> They don't want to, because it draws from their app store revenue.
One word: Regulation. Easy to regulate Big Tech through laws. But incoming administration in US isn't going to take it seriously given that Big Tech did exactly what they wanted.
But they can be easily tamed if other countries do it. If European Union, UK and India regulate Big Tech their dominance is over. They don't have any presence in China anyways. US is no longer that hot a market for online and ecommerce (even though monetarily US dominates as of now but that won't be the case the next decade).
This is not a good argument, please go back to the drawing board.
You are making the extraordinary claim, so you are the one that needs to provide evidence.
No browser vendor has blocked any sites in the way you are describing. Not Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or IE. At best, you'll get a warning when you are about to hit a malware site, but that's about it. You can click right past it.
So no, what you are saying is ridiculous, and you should really feel uniformed and silly for suggesting it was likely.
> No browser vendor has blocked any sites in the way you are describing.
Chrome and Safari both use Google's "Safe Browsing Database" which outright blocks phishing scam sites. How long until this is expanded to "hate sites" because they "aren't safe"?
You don't need to root your device to install an .apk. It's all about friction. The harder you make it for people to do something, the less people will do it. It's always a very effective strategy.
The site not being online may be embarrassing from a risk management standpoint, but the app being censored from Apple Store and Google Play Store prevents them from having a meaningful presence ever again anyway.