psycho emoji too 🙂

Presumably the app would provide some additional functionality that is relevant to grocery lists. Like price tracking or coupons or something. IDK though I just use a text editor.

I don't even have a text editor on my phone. 🤷‍♂️

A list with check boxes is way better than a text only list. Though genetic to-do list apps are good enough for that, assuming it's a decent to-do list app in the first place.

i personally prefer simplicity. "TODO.txt" is all i need
- Do you edit it while you're grocery shopping? Mine aren't usually sorted so I'm picking off things from all over the list as I shop and it's a lot easier to see what's still outstanding if there's an empty/ticked box beside each item.
You can
Have "Checkboxes" ✅️
Without it actually being ❌️
Part of the program ✅️
- Yeah but then it's more steps to update the list as you go. With a dedicated check list, it's just scroll to item and tap (plus the occasional close edit box if I fat fingered it lol).
  Not that I'm defending the behavior in the OP. The second an app gives a "please use me" notification, it's either getting its notification settings changed or replaced with an app that doesn't do that shit (and with minimal permissions to do what I want it to do, eg a todo list app shouldn't need network access permissions).
A list with check boxes
Material notes has that.

I have a self hosted recipe book (Tandoor) and it has a built in grocery list. Its really nice cause I can just click a button and it adds everything I need to my grocery list.

Paprika recipe manager seems like an equivalent, and it's not subscription based. Just a one time purchase per OS
- Yeah but it's not self-hosted which was a big thing for me.
  
  I suppose, but what's the worth of self hosting when the functionality is locked behind a subscription fee. If the company goes down you still lose the software.
  
  Self hosted tandoor is free. And it's open source.
  
  Oh, I see.
  I just saw the subscription costs and the free tier as limited to 10 recipes. I didn't realise the self hosted version was fully functional

I used one to manage inventory at a bar. More cost effective, single developer instead of a big corporation so I could have features added. It also never harassed me to use other products, and didn't spam me beyond letting me know when there were updates to apply.

Obsidian is on my phone and all my computers. It is sync'd between them. I keep all my shopping lists, todos, recipes, and so on in it. It never notifies me about shit. It opens instantly. Its very easy to find and edit anything I need.

It would truly be a miracle for an app to be better at keeping lists than I am with a markdown file. And it also keeps track of a bunch of other things for me. I even had an encrypted file in it with my passwords stored, but I've sanely moved on to Keepass for that, a rare case of an app actually offering enough additional security and functionality to be worth it.

A charitable interpretation is because a list-making app can provide richer functionality than a basic text document by allowing you to check things off as you pick them up.

A grocery-specific list app could be even more tailored. It could, for example, automatically group items you add by produce type (fresh, tinned, frozen) or allow you to define a template for common items you want to purchase on every shop.

A less charitable interpretation is that some people don't tend to think "what tool is appropriate to solve this problem?" and look at what they already have installed, but instead present the problem and expect a solution will be delivered. So people go on the app store and type "grocery list" and just install whatever comes up. The same happens for every other life problem they want to solve, which is why these people have 200 hyper-specific apps on their phones.

Some people will fall into group A, and some into group B.

Personally I use Joplin for all my note-taking and listing needs. It's a pretty basic markdown editor but is cross-platform and has custom backends for storage, so my notes can be stored privately and synced to all my devices. Markdown is obviously less featureful than a proprietary app format but is portable, and you can easily export all your data without being tied forever to Joplin if circumstances change. I would recommend it if you need a notes app.

My girlfriend and I share lists on ours, she can add things and I can see them for when I go to the store. In theory cause she usually has to tell me.about it first so I remember to look at it. Makes Xmas food shopping much simpler. I suppose there is a text sharing one but so far 'ourgroceries' ( think that's right) only bugs me to buy the full app when I use it, but otherwise no biggie. Plus you can disable notifications from apps anyways, least I thought so, cause I probably had one from there and said nope, don't care. Maybe it tells you when someone else put something there if they are on, oh well if I'm missing them too cause we talk still heh.