The moment it was announced that Android Apps/Play store was coming to Chrome OS, I always wondered about the fate of Chrome Apps.

I built a Photobooth App called Photomatico[1] (for use in events/wedding/parties). While there is an endless supply of photo/camera apps in Android and iOS, there were only a few photo/camera apps on the Chrome Store, and even less that didn't rely on using Flash. I wrote Photomatico originally as a web app for one of my friend's wedding (super happy with the use of only HTML/CSS/Javascript).

It was a relatively small effort to package the code into a web app (because packaged web apps have the added functionality of running offline/disconnected, kind of like Cordova/PhoneGap) and adding to the fact that Google handled all the payments - so no need to do extra work and sign up for credit card processing/Stripe/Recurly/paypal, etc. So all you had to do was add a few lines of code, zip it up and people would pay you for it!

I think people value the simplicity of an "app" versus a website even though in my case the functionality is equivalent. From the last 3 years, I find that non-tech people (i.e. people who celebrate retirement parties, DIY party organizers, etc.) are pretty comfortable with the concept of packaged apps (icons, distinct install process) but are even more comfortable with the safety of an App store. As crowded as it is, users definitely were more comfortable with a store than navigating and bookmarking a website.

I have built other apps that use the bookmarking feature to launch separate self-contained windows and my own anecdotal observations show that this workflow is really hard for them to grasp. Even the "new" way in Chrome is being dismissed by users because it looks too much like an ad or popup.

A few years ago, I put my Photobooth app on the Chrome Store and slapped a price (currently:free for selfies, $40 for the "Events" edition). I learned a lot about pricing/offering (I was surprised when I discovered I had more people paying $40 for the Events Edition than $5), building an email list (incentivizing signups), etc.

Just the other day, I was reviewing my revenue figures, and for relatively low amounts of work/support it's currently bringing in around $150 CDN / month, with over 40 daily installs, a couple thousand pictures taken weekly.

As sad as it is to see the chrome store go all I can say (in 2018 when they will shut it down) is: "So Long! Thanks for all the fish!"

[1]https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobooth/lcimple...