Can you elaborate on why you think it’s “garbage” when an indie dev is trying to make money off something they created? May I ask what you do for a living? (Just curious.)
Even as a free iOS app, there is the $99/year Apple Developer fee, on top of any server costs.
Meanwhile, a web app can be used by anyone on any device, and if designed properly, can be hosted for free on a number of platforms.
If the goal is to make money from casual users, an indie iOS app is the move.
... But that would not fly for what I presume to be a very large fraction of the HN audience that lives and breathes code. What could have been an interesting and tweakable open source project built in a weekend, sold as a closed untweakable app at a $20/year subscription, only for iPhones? That would certainly be quite a bold sell.
But again, for sake of argument let’s say you didn’t, why not? Because at its core you didn’t find it valuable. But they deserve to make money off their creations right? So by your logic everyone should buy this, regardless of value, because they deserve the money. Except they don’t. They have a right to charge $20/yr for an app they made in a weekend, and I have every right as a consumer to refuse that and even mock it. Especially when they make poor business decisions such as taking on unnecessary fixed costs and limiting themselves to ~50% of the market. This is what they call the free market, and I suggest you go back to Econ 101 if you don’t understand.
As for what I do for a living: I provide value to others and receive monetary compensation in return, something this app fails to do.
Would love to see more web forward tech, or otherwise platform agnostic tech.