They make it so painful though to obviously twist people's arms into installing their data harvesting apps. Facebook on mobile is so stripped down and actually freezes half the times you try to use it.
You need it to share URLs. You can't know the device it will be opened on. Also, news articles sometimes embed them, which they use to hoard information about readers.
I was really hoping this would say “why does Facebook and Instagram provide a web interface when their crappy platforms rarely show content unless you’re using their app”.
At this point it’s purely a performance that they even offer a web interface to their platform.
Instagram is especially awful when using a web browser... but pintrest wins my award for the best black hole of all time. Information goes into pintrest and then it dies forever.
In addition to other reasons given, I see their web interfaces as recruitment methods.
People who don't have the app can still click links which bring them to the FB/IG/Tw websites - and then that could be enough to get them interested enough to then go on and install the full app especially when they find out how restricted the websites are.
I don't download apps if the place has a website. I don't want some garbage company on my phone unless it's in a browser. Infact most applications are just trash and show limited functionality of the website, nothing more. Most program d are literally useless trash.