i doubt he really hates his product at the end of the day, it's just a catchy way to market it. if he did, he would've walked away when his partner did to freelance some more or do another startup.

It's like when you see people on YouTube who make horrendous clickbait, yet get millions of views. It's easy to laugh and dismiss them, but financially they're probably rolling in it...

Are they the smart ones for exploiting the largest, most lucrative audience (young children who are more likely to watch more of the video before clicking off) and cashing in? Or are they legitimately not self-aware?

Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." In my experience, when people have a strong financial interest in not being self aware, they will generally not be self aware. I can never decide whether that's legitimate or not.

It's a bummer that our society is structured with financial incentives that are so poorly aligned with interesting goals.

Look at how people treat the statement, "I work at Facebook", for example. It has changed a lot over the last decade. It used to be hot and positive. But I had a friend start just recently. They're doing something worthwhile and entirely unrelated to the many things terrible about Facebook. But they still felt obliged to apologize for it.

I'd like to see more of that pressure applied to people who are making money by making the world worse.

Yup. 100% agreed. And I want to remind everyone here that putting such pressure is a perfectly legitimate thing to do in market economy. Companies respond to market signals, so if a moral value is not made into a signal - i.e. made to impact sales - it won't get considered.

One or two happen to be in some field that trigger my bullshit alert and I think it’s somewhat sketchy what they do. For example, stuff around network marketing for dietary supplements.

I mean, who am I to judge?

But as to who you are, I'd say you have several things that give you grounds to have an opinion. One is that you're a human being and want to see other humans treated well. Two, you're part of a variety of communities, and you have an interest in seeing those communities be healthy. Three, you're a successful entrepreneur, so you have real expertise in what makes for a good business. And surely there are more.

In your shoes I'd definitely look for opportunities to influence people like that. It can be as simple as the look that passes across your face when they tell you what they do. If they ask for advice, you can point them to something healthier. You could give a talk on what makes for good, sustainable businesses. And with people where you are already an influencer (e.g., friends, family) you can definitely help keep them from getting into work like that.

> You could give a talk on what makes for good, sustainable businesses.

I will do! And I'll try to find words that sound encouraging to them. After all, most of them probably just want more freedom for themselves and the sketchy business ideas probably look like the simplest way to get there.

Good luck with it! Feel free to drop me a line and let me know how it goes.

I worked for a SEO company for about a year making SaaS tools to help "analyze keywords", "supply backlinks", "generate content" and other woo woo magic. Waking up and walking to work was fun for only the first month :/

Most of the users made crappy copy-paste websites and did whatever they could to get a better rank on search engines.

I'm glad he got there in the article. But yes... He's not only doing what I would consider a net harm, but he's aware of it. And all that's before he added the referal scheme to it.

His take away at the end is good, don't do it for money (which is easy to say when you're making money), share with people as soon as you can, and be proud of what you're doing. How he got that last one after the realization he's making things worse - I don't know. Do as a say not as I do I suppose? I agree, he doesn't hate this app at all, he's just figured out a way to market it.

a single level referral system is not a MLM

Amusing typo

That said, I do think app generators in general are a fun and cool idea. It's his target market more than anything else that makes it a spam machine.

This "I feel guilty but they are making money" narrative thing is just genius marketing. I take my hat off to him.

First of all, thank you for sharing this story. Secondly, I envy your grit and the ability to just go and sell, instead of being stuck in impostor syndrome mode.

Thirdly, shame on you for building a product which sole point is to make money by destroying the Play Store. And shame on you for working on it after you realized this.

Foruthly, and this is the part I don't understand - how on Earth were you able to make money on that first app of yours? And how your customers are able to repeat that? I mean, who on Earth downloads this kind of stuff? I'm very confused about this. By your description, that app is "simple app with a list of videos, targeting a specific trending niche", i.e. not much more than a YouTube playlist. So who are the people downloading cookie-cutter apps when an universal one-stop app is available?

One of the first comments on the post is asking about whether or not the OP intends to duplicate this effort on the Apple App Store. Say what you will about Apple's walled garden but the core difference between it and the Play store is that it's designed to prevent things like this.

The Play store invites this sort of thing. Kudos to the OP for capitalizing on it.

A good question that I too would like to get an answer to. He does not mention if they had an adwords campaign.

He did, however, write that they made tons more apps like that. So it's the "quantity vs quality" scenario I guess. Maybe something like what Ketchapp are/were doing.

I don't know if cryptocurrency is going to solve this problem, but whatever does solve it is going to generate an enormous amount of wealth.

Simple solution: "We take the first $25 in ad revenue your app generates and you keep the rest."

Complex solution: "We take 50% of the ad revenue your app generates unless you pay $25/month through outside means."

...unless they needed to create thousands of apps to make any income and 50% is cheaper than $25/app.

You could invoice them for the $25 but you cannot "keep" it until/unless your service becomes the advertising network's client.

Regarding the rest of the text: I wonder what value people using these apps get out of them?

I share some of his sentiment: The aim is to onboard a bunch of people with a "get rich quick"-kind-of-mentality and flood a platform with content of questionable content (I mean, the content could be good - but somehow I doubt it if a single person creates a thousand apps). On the other hand: Living on 6k$ in Morocco? Could be a worse life...

I guess some people think they will never become feeble, that they will maintain the power to keep the evil stuff separate from the rest of their life. But we are all enfeebled in the end.

That's the Christian orthodox view btw -- that you make your own hell by your stance and action (in which view, hell is not an actual place, even in another dimension, with fire pits and demons, but just your resentment and the distance you feel from God's love).

". . . those who find themselves in hell will be chastised by the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo no greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God . . . But love acts in two ways, as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed!" (Saint Isaac of Syria).

Learn more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_Catholicism

There was once a general who asked the Zen master Hakuin:"Are there really such things as Heaven and Hell?"

"What do you do for a living?" Hakuin asked him.

"I'm a general."

"Ha, ha, ha! What idiot asked you to be his general? You look more like a butcher to me", the Zen master teased the general.

"I'll cut you to pieces!" the general angrily pulled his sword.

"Here lie the gates of Hell!" said the master.

"Excuse me...Please forgive my insolence.”

And Hakuin said:"Here lie the gates of Heaven."

Heaven and Hell aren't places that suddenly appear after death. They exist here and now. Good and evil involve just a single instant of thought, and the gates of Heaven and Hell are ready to open for you at any time. (From Zen Stories: The Staff and Shout of the Venerable Ones)

    Pride ruined the angels,
    Their shame them restores;
    Lurks the joy that is sweetest
    In stings of remorse.

https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_descent_of_j...

Here's a quote:

> So we determine whether we are in hell or not by our own belief or unbelief, by our love of love, and our love of light, and our love of truth, and our love of glory, or by our hatred of it. That has nothing to do with Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, who died for us. When He descended into Sheol and Hades, it means simply that He died, and through death, trampled down death and raised the dead, all the dead, there is no one left in the tomb, as it says. In St. John Chrysostom’s sermon on Paschal night, he said, “No one is left in the tomb. Christ is risen and life reigns.” But if you hate that life, it is hell. If you love it, it is Paradise.

Posted something similar from early christian theology in the same thread.

> Before I knew it, the conversion rate from new user to active user ( level 3+ ) skyrocketed from 5% to 45%.

And also:

> Users could share their referral link and get a 10% cut of the ad revenue from every app the referred user makes, forever. For example, if user A brings in user B, and user B makes an app that brings in $10/day, user A would get $1 every day without lifting a finger.

Pyramid scheme or just Multi-Level Marketing?

And the posting itself is a good way to boost visibility.

Everyone has a disillusionment moment, and that's the real takeaway from this post, for me.

Lots of actions have consequences beyond their direct and immediate effects, realizing that is one of the harder parts of growing up.