You pretty much have to deal with big tech to have an app and no social media site can really be big without it. (I know side loading exists on android).

Parler hosting on Amazon was an incredibly dumb decision though.

An app is basically just an HTML widget. Do you really need an app?

Like the main reason you typically build one is because it's much harder to spy on your users when they're in a browser.

I don't need an app, but the average person needs an app. The average person doesn't know how to set up a pwa and doesn't want to use a browser.

Eh, I honestly don't know about that. I think the average user struggles telling the difference between an app and a website.

The problem with a website is your cookies get deleted every once in a while. This is is inconvenient since you have to re login. Also, push notifications for a regular website isn't great (pwas might be better?)

Cookies get deleted when you explicitly delete them (most users don't know how to do that), or when you've set them to expire (which can decades into the future), or when you break your own code (which should be never).

Cookies should be set to session not a date. Many sites like HN don't do that presumably for convenience. I assume most social media sites set a date though.