Maintaining 2 different apps (a native one and a web one) is costly in terms of time/resources. The point its not that developers "don't want" to make both, is that many don't have the resources to make both.
PWAs have always seemed like one of those beautifully idealistic yet totally doomed to fail ideas (at least for several years relative to native-based-approaches). Don't get me wrong, I think the web will ultimately evolve into the new JVM (read: via WASM), and the beatific promise that was foretold by PWA will finally reach the masses.
Reality Check: We're not quite there yet. Firefox deleting a legacy, buggy, and dev-time-sink attempt at this, makes total sense to me so they can focus on the other awesome stuff they're doing that actually creates real value for the masses today.
To be fair - perhaps they could've handled the ticket on this a bit more gracefully...? But then again - they know their stuff, so I don't blame them entirely :)
Telling your customers to install a pwa is a terrible user experience and borderline rude
My company’s payroll admin system uses a PWA as a mobile interface. I don’t need slick ui there, I need to view my payslips (click a link to open a pdf) and request time off (fill in a 4-field form). It’s perfectly fine for this usecase and there is no conceivable business value in pouring more resources into it.
News flash: a majority of applications is simple CRUD like this. They don’t need a native UI or performance. They just need an icon on your homescreen.
But they are telling users to install apps. Sites that depend on advertising want to force the app down your throat to eliminate ad blockers and to better track you.