DISCLAIMER: for the record, this is a rant I wrote at 3 am so please don't take it too seriously. I'm mostly sharing it so you can have a good laugh, because apparently a few people thought it was funny and said I should share it.
This is something that keeps me up at night. It gives me anxiety to think that more and more useless apps are not only being developed, but funded. What the fuck. The thing is, building something today that solves a problem, isn't going to make you a "rockstar" if it's not sexy and social :(
Just sayin'. But, to your point, yes I would welcome a world where all the ultra low-fi junk would disappear and where there was less noise in the app marketplace... like 2003, except with today's consumer awareness.
But the exact opposite will happen. Right now, our peers are building tools to allow ever lower-fidelity apps to enter the marketplace, that is, enabling less and less qualified people to try their hand at building products.
I have yet to find the saving grace in this situation. I see two paths: 1) create tools to help people build crap apps, and make money while I can, 2) move up the value chain, and make money while I can.
Personally, I think democratizing technology is a really, really good thing. Sure, we have to suffer through things like Comic Sans abuse and crappy apps, but that is a minuscule price to pay for increasing the creative freedom of humanity.
That's fundamentally why we build new tools -- to increase the freedom of people to impact the world.
[Edit: Just read the article you linked. Losing 27 pounds by eating twinkies? Priceless. :) ]
I agree, and I'll go a step further, risking HN pariah status in doing so:
Comic Sans is a Good Thing.
That capitalization isn't accidental. It, and every other easy to [mis]use cute, fun, and simple thing we've seen in the last couple decades have been incredibly beneficial to the tech industry and humanity as a whole.
When the Mac and Windows came around, a lot of "computer people" hated them. They were slow and inefficient, and hurt productivity. RMS still rarely uses a mouse. That's fine for people like us, but it isn't fine for people who use a computer to keep in touch with friends or make lost cat posters. And the simple fact is that there aren't that many people like us. Casual users are by far the largest demographic, and that expanded market has been a huge boon for us.
The proliferation of "toy" apps is no different. By sending the message that "you too can make an app", we expand the market hugely. That helps everyone. So what if most apps are garbage? Most websites were garbage in the 90s, but without them we would never have had the Internet that we have today. We needed that huge variety of sites for people to think the marketplace was worthwhile. Now, the Internet is mature, and we almost accept as an inevitability that it should be that way. It wasn't. Without geocities, porn, and even AOL it would just be a graphical Usenet with 2% of its current users.
We're in a Geocities phase right now. There's a proliferation of garbage filling up the mobile sphere. Without that garbage, however, the sphere would be much smaller. Eventually, professional companies will step in and improve overall quality, but we need size at the moment. It grows the market, and it's good for everyone.
App stores do not democratize technology. App stores limit access to technology to Officially Approved Developers who don't piss off the platform owner.
Democratizing technology isn't fundamentally about Freedom and Openness and Fairness.
It's about making technology useable by everyday people.
You can do that by making everyone an engineer, or by placing arbitrary limits that increase the likelihood of people using the thing, or any number of ways. Limiting access to technology can absolutely democratize it.
The word app doesn't only refer to something in an app store. The article mentions "I'm talking small, stupid applications that serve no purpose other than to take up space in some app store or some .com". threewords.me is such an app that takes up a domain.
"But last time I checked, companies started with one application, sold it, then made a few more" ... like 37signals and their apps.
I think you're right that the low-fi junk will only increase, but just want to point out that it's not always less qualified people who produce the low-fi crap. Sometimes CS majors just want to go for the cash :)
Apple first tried to push developers to the web. It was because of the hacking community that apps got popular and they opened up the iPhone OS (now iOS).
Mobile apps are great for small and quick functional tasks. It's not a great interface to do incredibly complicated actions unless they can be done at the press of a button, minimal typing or by a swipe.
I agree there's a lot of crud out there but I'd like to see where Adam Conrad has solved world hunger, ended climate change or stopped wars. He calls everyone else out. Where's his contribution to solving HUGE problems? :)
I think small apps by small teams have to start from somewhere. However, we probably don't need any more fart or lighter apps.
I'm 25...Einstein didn't publish his theory of relativity until he was 26. Give me a year...but seriously, I'm trying. I may not be mother Teresa, but I volunteer at shelters and I've donated a fair amount to the acs and relay for life. And I know my blood was uses to save someone's life. Baby steps. Change one life at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I'm pretty sure ifart was (zing)
That's kind of bullshit when Mobile Safari doesn't support such basic functionality as uploading photos you've made from your phone to websites.
A far more likely scenario -- Apple wasn't sure they want third-party apps (web or not) on their platform. After all, the iPod did quite well without apps, or a browser.
I mean, I remember when a website was something a company had, not something a company was.
The trend toward per-project companies is, I think, fundamentally a good one. It means less job security, but more creative freedom, and probably more money going to the creators and less to managers.
This is the exact problem companies wishing to develop useful programs face everyday. Now we have a consumer base that only buys because of hype/something going "viral". If you do create something beneficial one of the only ways to be noticed is to treat what you develop as one if those "candy" apps. The words software, and programs have disappeared.
It's still a bit of a gold rush, and investors mean well. However, there needs to be more innovative thinking on their end as well. We don't need a new photo sharing program, or ways to post a picture online. It's funny that this article uses weightless angle be because all of this technology has made us, well bigger. Technology is great, but it's time we get back to solving real problems.
BTW, I'm looking for an excellent programmer for a new project!
"So this cluster fuck of apps has become so diluted in human value and so inflated in capital value that Ninja Warrior Agile ScrumMaster and Incompetent MBA Popped Collar actually have a decent chance of landing on the front page of TechCrunch with a title something to the effect of “Man Takes a Dump on an Android Phone: Sand Hill Road Calls First Dibs for $22M”"
Oh noes, fallibility in my logic! How could I have not checked myself before I wrecked myself! I should probably just close down my Posterous account right now and save face. Never again will I indulge in anything less than pure, unadulterated value. FFFUUUUU!
EDIT: I thought it was funny. I would totally call me out too haha. Ah man, totally ruins my cred, you know, cause I had some to begin with :-p
So does that mean that people should stop working on the problem domain that is "social and sharing" ? I would say, not quite. But the "Me too" herd mentality is not helping, not just in terms of the amount of capital that is thrown at it, but talent that could have been better spent elsewhere now toils away in making another Groupon clone because he has tunnel vision.
We are working in the domain of contextual discovery and there are a number of juicy problems right there. Determining what is useful to you so that we can deliver that alone, based on where you are, why you are there and who you are with. Thats a meaty problem to solve. One of them, at least.
I never said that. I said that there are real problems worth solving, and not all of them are in the social space. There is still plenty of value to be added to the social landscape, just don't forget the domains that aren't the bees knees at the moment.
Great read, but I think that if the VCs can resist the temptation of investing too much too early there does exist a positive outcome.
We might just see feature development moving away from teams in big companies into smaller, independent teams. These will raise small amounts of money from angels and micro-VC's and get bought out en masse for mild sums by companies looking to add features and products.
What struck me about your post was the disdain you have for the tools that allow "non-professionals" to create applications. "But hey, I guess that’s what happens when you make the web so accessible that anyone thinks he can do it, too." Well, I remember the Internet before the web and you know what? I guess that's what happens when you make the Internet so accessible that anyone thinks they can do it.
I also notice you program in C# and Ruby, which (tongue in cheek) aren't real langauges. I mean, they're interpreted! You know, like BASIC. Meant for toy programs and people that don't know how computers really work. I still remember the time when applications (shrink wrapped applications) were written in Assembly language because even a compiled language like C produced "toy" applications (one reason why Lotus ate Microsoft's lunch in the early 80s---Lotus 1-2-3 was written in Assembly when Microsoft's Excel wasn't and it showed).
The whole point of things like assemblers, compilers and interpreters are to make programming easier so people can ignore gritty details and get on with their job. And as much as I hate PHP, it has allowed people who otherwise could not express their ideas, a way of expressing their ideas (personally, I wouldn't want to maintain their code or even look at it, but that's a separate issue).
As I read it, you seem upset that apps you deem stupid are getting funding and you aren't.
1) "Change the world" is a red-herring. There's a lot of very valuable and helpful work that people with a "change the world" focus will miss out on. A lot of people writing craplications believe they will change the world. It's a content-free sound-bite at this point. It doesn't translate into any world-changing behaviour.
2) The value of a thing has very little to do with how hard it is to make. This is a common trap that techies fall into: I worked really hard and didn't get rewarded while someone else spent a few hours and did get rewarded.
2b) If you're going to argue that we're incentivizing the wrong behaviours, well, that's an interesting argument that you didn't explore.
3) Unintentionally, your rant is analogous to the very apps you're criticizing. I.e. it seems you just kind of pooped it out. You apologize for pooping it out, but you don't do the things that could turn it into an insightful or useful article.
Just as various app stores are saturated with crap, news sites are saturated with random half-assed comments that would be funny over beer, but just clog the internets.
This reply like the article had vaguely immature tone to it, but it was also the second time the author had me laughing today. I don't see it as any different than Lewis Black going off on politicians. As long as you're smart about it, and not just being crude for the sake of it, it works.
If you feel that you need a disclaimer, why not improve the post to the point where you don't need a disclaimer, before inflicting it on HN?
It's one thing to rant to friends over a beer, but at least try to go through a few drafts or reviewers before inflicting such nonsense on the internet, permanently. Maybe try to address the first level of obvious criticism?
Re: me ... I have 0 dollars in outside funding, and some number of users who like my work. Unless you're saying that games are ipso facto useless, I'm not sure how this is relevant.
Don't blame Apple for the app. Originally they wanted people to develop web apps and not software that runs on the phone. The people demanded it and they went with it.
I agree with some of this article, even though it seems it's fairly tongue-in-cheek.
The problem isn't accessibility - the problem is (mindless) venture capital. There are people with money (and low wisdom / experience) who have learnt that you can invest in tech and make a huge return - in some cases, this has taken the focus away from creating sustainable and useful businesses.
Perhaps hackers are simply the cogs in the wheels of modern finance?
Except you said "useful." I'm all for that. But you should keep building them. Just cause a company builds a useful application does not mean they should close up shop and start elsewhere with a new name.
My thoughts exactly. Doesn't anyone want to innovate, or "change the world" anymore?
If someone's going to go through all of the labor to make a copy of groupon or an iFart app or a twitter API mashup just for the cash, they should just write a Forex trading algorithm. They'll make more money that way, and their models will be infinitely more computationally unique than any consumer copycat.
"If someone's going to go through all of the labor to make a copy of groupon or an iFart app or a twitter API mashup just for the cash, they should just write a Forex trading algorithm."
You mean writing one that makes money? That's infinitely harder than the examples you provided.
Quite a lot of smart guys put nontrivial effort into that. You need to be as good as them, preferably even a little better. Good luck.
So writing Forex trading algorithms, according to you, will innovate to "change the world"? How? A common critic to the financial sector is that their "innovation" helps only to get themselves rich.
A lot of real innovation still happens in semiconductors, medical, energy. I think that's a better contrast to the 'bullshit app' hype.
News flash: coupons are still boring and I don’t want to give out my email address to a service I don’t even know I’ll benefit from. So now we have an App Store that serves nothing but candy, and we all love candy don’t we?
The OP is not the intended audience for most/all of the apps he's talking about. I don't think he understands that.
There are apps and companies that seem to be absolutely superfluous -- how many Groupon clones do we need? (Do we even really need Groupon?)
That's what the word "bubble" refers to, though. If the OP didn't mean a stock market bubble, he should explain what he does mean. A "bubble" of investing? Why would it warrant the analogy of a bubble? What horrible things happen if and when VC investments don't pan out?
What people are trying to call a bubble is actually just an increase in investment by VCs, sometimes good investments, sometimes bad, and sometimes there are overvaluations.
But if you think we're in a bubble, you either don't remember the real bubble of 1999 or you misunderstood what the problem was.
I suggest you to check few graphs on Google/Yahoo Finance
Considering the deep trough we just came out of, it makes sense that we see a stock market uptick. Moving up != inherently bad.
Those talking about bubbles generally have serious financial interests in lowering initial valuations.
When you see a VC claim that one of their portfolio companies is overpriced then we MIGHT be in a bubble. Those talking about bubbles generally point to companies they don't own as examples of a bubble.
Was the real estate itself part of the bubble? I thought there was lots of trading of mortgage-backed assets that went on the ridiculous assumption that house prices would continue to rise indefinitely, then when they stopped rising the derived (high-volume) trading was exposed as irresponsible. So the bubble would be in credit-default-swaps or whatever you call them, not in actual property.
Someone who knows what they're talking about explain please!
Yes, the bubble was in real estate. "People believe the value of X will rise indefinitely" is pretty much the definition of "there's a bubble in X". A lot of dumb things, not just selling exotic derivatives, were done based on the assumption that house prices could not fall. For example, people used crazy leverage to buy houses, figuring its value had to go up. Now they are underwater on their zero-down adjustable mortgages.
In reference to the technology industry, "bubble" means stock market bubble -- because that's the kind of bubble that can have a direct, significant impact on the industry. And it did, in the late '90s.
What kind of bubble are we in? A VC investment bubble? The investments that are being disparaged too anecdotal to have a significant financial impact.
Because there is a huge rise in early-stage investment activity and associated rise in valuations. That's the definition of a bubble regardless whether asset class is stock in startups, public companies, houses or tulips.
Uh... speaking of being the next Mark Zuckerberg have you heard of Facemash? It's exactly the kind of crap the lean startup movement is trying to foster. That's exactly the idea, that any idiot can make a website, scrape some content and become a billionaire.
Yes, today Facebook has scaling issues but seriously any idiot with a book on PHP could make the original Facebook (the tech side, Facebook is all about execution and not tech).
Regarding companies being the app, have you heard of Microsoft, Oracle or SAP? Ok, granted Microsoft has two apps Windows AND Office, but why do you think Microsoft started branding everything Windows? All those companies are built off of a single 'app'.
Microsoft = DOS then Windows
Oracle = Oracle DB
SAP = SAP
