To be honest, I don’t think you’ll need to use the app. I get my passes via email and add them to Apple Wallet.
In some airports, printing the pass is actually free, they have a dedicated vending machine just for this.
They are not saying that you can not print the pass yourself, I suspect this move will save a lot of time and money which, ultimately, is a good thing for everyone.
They want to charge a check-in fee if you don’t do it online, I would not be surprised if they have a lot of people wasting time doing it in-person instead of doing it online. This could speed customer who actually have luggage.
The online check-in opens 48 hours before the flight and you get a notification, no reason to delay this and your life harder inside the airport and potentially lose your flight.
Still confused about the no paper thing, you could print the digital pass given It has the gate qr code
While I never fly on Ryan, the question here would be whether, as the article suggests but isn't completely clear, digital boarding passes are actually app-only, or whether, like most airlines, you can get an image boarding pass from the website or by email that is meant to be displayed on a phone.
I use Ryanair and the app is decent but it should not be mandatory to fly