I don’t have personal experience in this, so obviously I can’t speak with any authority. But I have heard from colleagues that tons of little factors can dramatically affect user engagement. For example, even a couple dozen milliseconds of longer load times can push a noticeable number of users away from your app.
Undoubtedly some people will be put off, but think of how often Reddit used to go down -- still got pretty big. And Twitter already has all the newsmakers people want to see. If your goal isn't necessarily user growth it makes sense
I have personal experience with this. The metrics (as much as I despise using them as a source of truth) undoubtedly show a very strong positive correlation between better load times and user retention.
