Comment by ffitch
18 hours ago
Building (or vibecoding) a markdown editor for a single user and their specific use case, for a 100 users, and for 10,000 users takes different amount of time and effort. In the pre-LLM days people with resolve to make 1-user version were likely to polish it for 100-users and somewhat likely to get it to a stable place when it can satisfy thousands of users.
Today on /r/macapps/ there’s a wave of apps that look good at the first glance but get abandoned before they achieve even a 100-users maturity level.
Lots of people threw small apps on their Github accounts for their own convenience in having a backup, and in case other people might be interested, but realistically never expected to get one more user. I have several scripts, Chrome extensions, and the like in my Github that fit that description. The difference is that coding agents let you write a one-user app at a much larger scale than before.
> In the pre-LLM days people with resolve to make 1-user version were likely to polish it for 100-users and somewhat likely to get it to a stable place when it can satisfy thousands of user
And then put it on an app store and put all the vital features behind $15/mo subscription.
Which is totally justified! I understand the time and energy needed to get a product polished for 10,000 users. But thanks, I will take my vibe coded one.
Contrastingly, Minimal (minimal.app) is a markdown notes app made by me for me (for one person!) improved to support 100 thoughtful writers, improved again to support thousands, then tens of thousands… now 6 years later I continue to ship meaningful updates (OS parity, new features, better designs for existing features, greater stability and performance, and occasionally entirely new patterns).
What made the difference? For one thing, I know better than to ignore the future. A small success in 2020 was like a seed planted amidst an infinite future, and I knew to water the seed. Secondly, I continue prioritize this fulcrum between complexity and utility, where the app gets better by getting simpler wherever possible (most people neglect this fulcrum as not offering much “business opportunity,” failing to realize it is the foundation of all business opportunities). Finally, I just love it, and appreciate that others love it too.
(For those interested, you’re welcome to join the beta at minimal.app/#beta on Apple devices and contribute to the roadmap.)
Unless your name is “Legion”, you’re a single user, not a 10-thousand.
i mean, sure. but the point is, you yourself are often a solo user of these little productivity apps. if you're not using team-based features then a lot of these things aren't worth paying for.
I didn’t mean collaboration features. I clumsily used 10,000-users as a measure of the app completeness.
"10k user completeness" might be full of "features" you don't want that clutter the ui and add entropy.
You know how you think and know your goals so a customized, focused solution would be better than something for the general masses.