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Comment by callum85 | Hacker News Reader

I would agree with you if you were talking about 20MB. I think that would be my threshold for not caring about how big an app is, i.e. even if it's something really basic like a countdown timer app I would be OK with it being up to 20MB, because as you say, connections are fast and space is cheap. But 100MB? I don't know.

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You could install more than 1000 apps on a moderate SSD at 100MB each. How many apps does the average person have installed?

It's nothing to do with how much space it will take up. The problem is that, as a user, I would be very suspicious of a 100MB countdown timer app. I would think that either it's got some kind of adware in it, or just that it's incompetently designed.

>as a user, I would be very suspicious of a 100MB countdown timer app

You mean as a developer. Your average 'user' does not know or care how big an app 'should' be.

I disagree. App file sizes are displayed in app stores because many users care about them.

A significant number of users would notice an app being dramatically larger than it ought to be. I've seen a lot of reviews like "why the hell this app over 100mb??!!1". There is a huge spectrum of technical competence between "I don't have any sense of what a megabyte is" and "Developer".

My laptop has a 256GB SSD. My media collection is 337GB. So a 100MB app doesn't just need to compete with other 100MB apps, it has to compete with my music, videos, and photos. Is a 100MB app better than my photos reminding me of my time in Sapporo, Japan? That depends on the app, but I'm more inclined to delete a 100MB app to make room for more photos than a 20MB app.

If your media is 337GB then you must already be storing it somewhere other than your 256GB SSD!

Besides, does it matter much if you delete an app when it can be downloaded again in a matter of minutes?

VLC is 106 MB. Do you care? I don't, it plays my videos well.

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