Re:Local First, Forever
by samuelstros on Tuesday June 25, 2024 @08:33AM
(#40787759)
I refer to open source projects, indie hackers, and one man shows with "hobby apps."
Distribution (specifically maintenance) becoming cheaper will enable those people to compete/provide enough value to customers that larger companies face downward pricing challenges.
If somebody is taking money for something, it isn’t really a hobby, it is a job. It might be a poorly paid one, but they still have an ethical obligation to their customers, to meet some standards of merchantability and provide some level of customer service.
But if you mean, “apps that hobbyists use” then that makes more sense. There’s nothing wrong with producing a toolkit that a hobbyist can use to write their own apps of course. It is like producing hand tools—you have an ethical obligation to make sure the tools themselves are reasonably free of defects but of course you don’t have to provide customer support for the treehouse!