With PWAs, you have to write apps in HTML, CSS, and JS, which seems worse than natively compiled languages like Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, etc. This, I feel, is a fundamental problem.

Perhaps the solution instead is that we need a way to distribute natively compilable apps via other means, maybe through a website but also through other app stores not subject to the Google / Apple duopoly; so basically PWA level access and downloadability, but not made with web technologies.