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App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

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Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#11

Post by steve_adams_86 »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #8
johng wrote: post #2

I've been watching the /r/cli and /r/tui subreddits for some time. The amount of vibe coded apps posted there just continues to climb. Some people in the comments for these apps can be quite rude when they read the description and find out its vibe coded. Nevermind how vile some can be when it's not in the announcement but the author lets them know down the line in the comments.

Are any of them good?

In my experience no, but I don't think that's a problem.

It's fascinating to see so many ideas and so much enthusiasm. I sometimes wonder if the fervor will die down as people realize it's still really hard to make truly fantastic software, but it's hard to say. There's a ton of inertia behind the vibe coding rush.

I also wonder if vibe coding is actually somewhat incompatible with the states of mind and contemplation that's often required to figure out how to solve problems properly. It isn't clear if you can brute force great solutions without putting in the initial domain distillation and idea incubation and so on. I'm sure there are exceptions but I have a feeling it'll never be trivial to come up with truly good and novel ideas for software, and vibing to get there might not make it any easier.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#12

Post by steve_adams_86 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #6
johng wrote: post #2

I've been watching the /r/cli and /r/tui subreddits for some time. The amount of vibe coded apps posted there just continues to climb. Some people in the comments for these apps can be quite rude when they read the description and find out its vibe coded. Nevermind how vile some can be when it's not in the announcement but the author lets them know down the line in the comments.

To me this is fair. If you vibe code something and try to pass it off as your own work people will be angry about the deception.

I don't love seeing slop everywhere and I don't feel good about models being trained on people's hard work, but... I also have a hard time believing my work was ever much different. I've always regurgitated and synthesized existing solutions. I took them from open source examples. I read people's blogs. I'm basically a really slow LLM most of the time. Is that a form of deception too? I really wonder how much of a difference it is sometimes. Maybe LLMs are just a shortcut of sorts to get where we've previously gotten using very similar means. Just absorbing and recycling ideas, learning by reinforcement, so on.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#13

Post by woah »

slopinthebag wrote: post #6
johng wrote: post #2

I've been watching the /r/cli and /r/tui subreddits for some time. The amount of vibe coded apps posted there just continues to climb. Some people in the comments for these apps can be quite rude when they read the description and find out its vibe coded. Nevermind how vile some can be when it's not in the announcement but the author lets them know down the line in the comments.

To me this is fair. If you vibe code something and try to pass it off as your own work people will be angry about the deception.

Who cares?

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#16

Post by locknitpicker »

saltyoldman wrote: post #4

While the news may seem inconsequential, many people keep saying "where are all the new apps". There you go. Your apps are here. Even if 95% go nowhere, some will become 1 person unicorns, perhaps 1 - 3 million ARR companies. If you're wondering if anyone gets rich off AI, it's that 5% of people that couldn't write it before - well they can now with a $20 subscription.

For your hypothesis to hold, you need to explain how your 1-person unicorn expects to get funded for their app when some guy with a $20 subscription can just as easily churn the same app or better.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#17

Post by wincy »

My friend just made an app. The idea sounds really dumb and he keeps asking me to install it. He’s never written a line of code in his life. I’d imagine a lot of the apps are stuff like this. It’s an app that tells you who died today, and who you’ve managed to outlive. Seems really glum and a downer.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#20

Post by EZ-E »

Sure a most of these apps are "slop" and will never achieve any kind of success. However a small percentage will eventually flourish into businesses which will eventually starts hiring developers and other roles.

Increased enablement and higher productivity leads to greater output which will eventually lead to greater need for (some types) of tech workers in the end.

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