> The data I have seen from the old company was this: people who installed our news reader app were 4-8 times more engaged than the people who used our uber mobile friendly and fast news site. Apps can be faster, handle offline/near offline far better.
I think you're mixing up causalities here. Those users that are already more engaged are the ones that can even be bothered to install your news reader app. How many users is that though? Do they make up for the ones that don't install the app? You're probably going to need both anyway, you're paying for both, you better make sure the native app is worth it. For a lot of business, it isn't worth it.
The core issue is that people aren't willing to install any more apps. Case in point, the very article wants me to install the "Medium" app. I'm not going to do that, because it's pointless. Medium works just fine as a website and that's true for most other apps you use merely on occasion. Could it be more responsive, use less battery, if it was native? Of course. I don't care.