You focused largely on the promotional aspect, though I think the product competition angle is more interesting.
The other day I saw someone famous(ish) announce a new desktop application, to meaningful reception.
Thirty minutes later I had the same application, in every meaningful way. Built, working, ready for distribution.
It was just a test and I’m not about to sell it, but I can’t see how this doesn’t come down hard on indie developers.
This example produced reasonably done swift using appropriate system libs… so while “slop” will be a thing people might ignore for now, I think the bar has to go way, way up for real developers.
I don't see how you could verify "same application in every meaningful way" inside of 30 minutes. Even if the other fellow just vibed it up like you did, him caring about the product and doing thoughtful QA and actually using the application and making little tweaks and staking his reputation on it and committing to its ongoing maintenance is what matters. You may even have an identical application at the end of the day but I'll pay $20 for one that I'm better able to trust.
"It takes five years to become an overnight success" I heard a variation of this from a VC who invested in my startup in the 8Os. I had to use it on him when we went back to the well a few times for more funding.
the software engineering profession seems to be one of the few professions that doesn't reward 20+ year professionals. with doctors, lawyers etc - your value goes up past 40.
but in software engineering with ageism - your value "goes down". when it should be the reverse if you're an IC.
so yeah going your own way as quick as possible - is not insurance for your sanity but income too.
Thanks for the frankly sharing of the journey, being in the same boat, after two years of not-worth-to-mention revenue from appstore, it seems start to get on track a bit now
I think I am not the lucky one to get overnight success and like in the post get the lucky time on iOS 15 release
Being writing a long article to record my indie app developper journey, Hope I can read in calm of it one decade later
I had the fortune and grit to build and release something on my own. It took years and a lot of pain. Then came the pain of supporting it in production. I generally regret putting myself through this and I do look back. I do think it is worth trying something, but you need to be careful what exactly you are building. Too many times I got lost in details or spent way too much time on things that were not worth it. Also, giving up sooner when you see it doesn't work can be a good thing.
+1 I did a few android apps in the goldrush years and building the app was the easy part, and this was before Claude code.
The hard part was the customer and technical support. Huge time and energy sink fielding those requests - some totally lucid and well written, some incomprehensible, some just kinda sketchy obviously looking to manipulate/exploit/whatever you, some from people using phones and software versions you've never heard of, some from people using a totally different app than yours, some who think you are Google/apple/Microsoft and please reset their password to hunter2 etc etc etc. Then you have the endless API churn and mandates from the app stores etc about what you can and can't do, what SDK needs updating for whatever, new requirements, new deprecations etc etc etc.
It was maybe 10% coding and building something, with the other 90% just dealing with "customer service" bullshit that gained you basically nothing (and certainly not making you any revenue).
I made some small time hobby money, but obviously I pulled all the apps eventually and never looked back really. I would not recommend doing this to anyone if you have a stable job that pays reasonably well already. Keep the day job, it's less hassle.
We need more of these stories. A week or two ago game engines came up where I see so many wanna-be indie devs effectively throw away their chance at shipping before running out of money by spending time making an engine instead of getting to the game by using an existing one. The comments were generally "so what if they had fun". My reply should have been "it would be nicer to have shipped and kept the fun going longer than not ship because of wasted time and therefore have to give up the dream"
As an indie software maker, I agree. I've been thinking about this a lot too. I'm going to start by polishing my indieweb site first. A site needs to look decent to be trustworthy.
I feel the same. I've always had this feeling about sites, but the recent year or so has really defined it for me: Sites that have the polished, glowing, glossy aesthetic are way less trustworthy to me than simple indieweb sites with some basic CSS. It's the same principle people have noted about seeing typos in text making it more human-like. Of course, Claude can make sites that have an indieweb vibe, but it takes deliberate prompting, while the default is the fancy 2020 SaaS startup aesthetic, which I see everywhere now. It's almost an inversion of felt effort.
If you have the balls to create and release something, you’re a legend. Don’t be a corporate NPC trying to look like the smartest person in the meeting and optimizing some stupid KPI for your next promotion packet. Life’s far too short. Save me the cliche rebuttals too, I’ve already heard them.
How is this the most upvoted comment? I get great joy out of being a great engineer at work. I LOVE solving hard problems and helping people. People at work using my tools or reading my documents brings me joy.
Because ultimately a lot of corpo tech is ads bullshit or not nearly far enough from it.
Or it's healthcare bs. And not the cool kind where you help people (tremendous respect for doctors and nurses). The bs kind where you make it slightly more efficient to bill them into bankruptcy.
Or it's generic SaaS which is more or less the most you can hope to get to work on. (It's where I am).
Then there's reams of poorly paid positions where you software mill excel-adjacent LOB apps.
I agree with the sentiment of parent comment. Corporate programming sucks. If you have the opportunity to not be alienated from the product of your labor, do it.
You do realize that there is a large spectrum of occupations between a self-employed software developer, and a "corporate NPC", don't you? And, do you really reject all counterarguments outright, like you heard all of them already and there is nothing new you can learn, nor any place of individual circumstances in life?
Games industry is a special case, more adjacent to the design industry.
I worked at a few Fortune 500 companies and interviewed a lot of candidates for both simple CRUD and harder systems programming work. Side projects, GitHub stuff, or even an independent bootstrapped business almost NEVER helped the candidate and more often seemed to hurt.
The only thing that would definitely help was getting your patches into major, major projects like the Linux kernel, PostgreSQL, OpenJDK, etc.
As someone who has made a living as an Indie developer for 20 years (creating Windows and Mac apps) I feel it is getting harder:
https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-...
You focused largely on the promotional aspect, though I think the product competition angle is more interesting.
The other day I saw someone famous(ish) announce a new desktop application, to meaningful reception.
Thirty minutes later I had the same application, in every meaningful way. Built, working, ready for distribution.
It was just a test and I’m not about to sell it, but I can’t see how this doesn’t come down hard on indie developers.
This example produced reasonably done swift using appropriate system libs… so while “slop” will be a thing people might ignore for now, I think the bar has to go way, way up for real developers.
>You focused largely on the promotional aspect, though I think the product competition angle is more interesting.
They are linked. LLMs mean reduced barriers and more competition, which makes promotion harder.
I don't see how you could verify "same application in every meaningful way" inside of 30 minutes. Even if the other fellow just vibed it up like you did, him caring about the product and doing thoughtful QA and actually using the application and making little tweaks and staking his reputation on it and committing to its ongoing maintenance is what matters. You may even have an identical application at the end of the day but I'll pay $20 for one that I'm better able to trust.
1 reply →
"surfing is not a sport, it's a way of life"
Agreed friend
Also, "it takes five years to become an overnight success" is a fantastic line.
Great read
"It takes five years to become an overnight success" I heard a variation of this from a VC who invested in my startup in the 8Os. I had to use it on him when we went back to the well a few times for more funding.
the software engineering profession seems to be one of the few professions that doesn't reward 20+ year professionals. with doctors, lawyers etc - your value goes up past 40.
but in software engineering with ageism - your value "goes down". when it should be the reverse if you're an IC.
so yeah going your own way as quick as possible - is not insurance for your sanity but income too.
is it easy no, but worth it.
Thanks for the frankly sharing of the journey, being in the same boat, after two years of not-worth-to-mention revenue from appstore, it seems start to get on track a bit now
I think I am not the lucky one to get overnight success and like in the post get the lucky time on iOS 15 release
Being writing a long article to record my indie app developper journey, Hope I can read in calm of it one decade later
If you’re fortunate to have the chance, do it and don’t look back.
I had the fortune and grit to build and release something on my own. It took years and a lot of pain. Then came the pain of supporting it in production. I generally regret putting myself through this and I do look back. I do think it is worth trying something, but you need to be careful what exactly you are building. Too many times I got lost in details or spent way too much time on things that were not worth it. Also, giving up sooner when you see it doesn't work can be a good thing.
+1 I did a few android apps in the goldrush years and building the app was the easy part, and this was before Claude code.
The hard part was the customer and technical support. Huge time and energy sink fielding those requests - some totally lucid and well written, some incomprehensible, some just kinda sketchy obviously looking to manipulate/exploit/whatever you, some from people using phones and software versions you've never heard of, some from people using a totally different app than yours, some who think you are Google/apple/Microsoft and please reset their password to hunter2 etc etc etc. Then you have the endless API churn and mandates from the app stores etc about what you can and can't do, what SDK needs updating for whatever, new requirements, new deprecations etc etc etc.
It was maybe 10% coding and building something, with the other 90% just dealing with "customer service" bullshit that gained you basically nothing (and certainly not making you any revenue).
I made some small time hobby money, but obviously I pulled all the apps eventually and never looked back really. I would not recommend doing this to anyone if you have a stable job that pays reasonably well already. Keep the day job, it's less hassle.
We need more of these stories. A week or two ago game engines came up where I see so many wanna-be indie devs effectively throw away their chance at shipping before running out of money by spending time making an engine instead of getting to the game by using an existing one. The comments were generally "so what if they had fun". My reply should have been "it would be nicer to have shipped and kept the fun going longer than not ship because of wasted time and therefore have to give up the dream"
As an indie software maker, I agree. I've been thinking about this a lot too. I'm going to start by polishing my indieweb site first. A site needs to look decent to be trustworthy.
In 2026 a site should not look made by Claude to feel trustworthy, IMHO
I feel the same. I've always had this feeling about sites, but the recent year or so has really defined it for me: Sites that have the polished, glowing, glossy aesthetic are way less trustworthy to me than simple indieweb sites with some basic CSS. It's the same principle people have noted about seeing typos in text making it more human-like. Of course, Claude can make sites that have an indieweb vibe, but it takes deliberate prompting, while the default is the fancy 2020 SaaS startup aesthetic, which I see everywhere now. It's almost an inversion of felt effort.
Does it look like Claude made it? It was actually made from a template I used 5 years ago. The world never stops surprising me.
2 replies →
If you have the balls to create and release something, you’re a legend. Don’t be a corporate NPC trying to look like the smartest person in the meeting and optimizing some stupid KPI for your next promotion packet. Life’s far too short. Save me the cliche rebuttals too, I’ve already heard them.
Yeah, but for most people, the paycheck from being a 'corporate NPC' is a profound and unbeatable argument.
Rent is due every month and stores don't accept personal IOUs....
Aren’t you all paid really well in the US? (I assume you’re in the US, given the general audience of this website)
I would be really surprised if the majority of HN audience didn’t have decent savings, unless SF is really as expensive as people say online?
1 reply →
How is this the most upvoted comment? I get great joy out of being a great engineer at work. I LOVE solving hard problems and helping people. People at work using my tools or reading my documents brings me joy.
You can do this and release things! Do both!
Because ultimately a lot of corpo tech is ads bullshit or not nearly far enough from it.
Or it's healthcare bs. And not the cool kind where you help people (tremendous respect for doctors and nurses). The bs kind where you make it slightly more efficient to bill them into bankruptcy.
Or it's generic SaaS which is more or less the most you can hope to get to work on. (It's where I am).
Then there's reams of poorly paid positions where you software mill excel-adjacent LOB apps.
I agree with the sentiment of parent comment. Corporate programming sucks. If you have the opportunity to not be alienated from the product of your labor, do it.
> Corporate NPC
That's a really good description, I should update my linkedin profile :)
You do realize that there is a large spectrum of occupations between a self-employed software developer, and a "corporate NPC", don't you? And, do you really reject all counterarguments outright, like you heard all of them already and there is nothing new you can learn, nor any place of individual circumstances in life?
>NPC
>mog
Touch grass
[dead]
But the corporations are where all the money is, and the system murders you if you don't have money.
It doesn't reward you if you don't produce anything that someone is willing to pay you for. Who has been murdered for not having money?
[dead]
[flagged]
[flagged]
> That’s self-aggrandizing white male behavior!
I think you might be victimizing yourself a bit much there
[dead]
If you haven't made games and can't show them on the spot you won't get hired in the gaming industry depending on role
Games industry is a special case, more adjacent to the design industry.
I worked at a few Fortune 500 companies and interviewed a lot of candidates for both simple CRUD and harder systems programming work. Side projects, GitHub stuff, or even an independent bootstrapped business almost NEVER helped the candidate and more often seemed to hurt.
The only thing that would definitely help was getting your patches into major, major projects like the Linux kernel, PostgreSQL, OpenJDK, etc.
[flagged]