Your app subscription is now my weekend project • Hacker News Board

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#311

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

SLWW wrote: post #117

I read the same tired opposing arguments all the time; I thought of it the moment I read the title. "My time isn't free, so I'll pay the tax" is true, however most of these individuals spend hours a day watching the news or doing anything else but being productive or spending time with family/friends. If you aren't working 24/7 while handling a family and telling yourself your time is worth more than a small fee, you…

That’s what these “time is money” people don’t get: It’s only opportunity cost if you would otherwise be working. Lets say I make $200/hr on my day job. If I choose to spend 4 hours in the evening writing an app, it’s not costing me $800 because I am not doing it instead of working. I would otherwise be cleaning up the garage or walking the dog or something.

Most people’s free time is not worth anything monetary. Sure, there is non monetary value in chilling out and spending time with family, but if I spend a few hours making an app for myself, then I got something for free.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#312

Post by fooker » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

First of all, I’m skeptical about these being free. Time isn’t free, and the tokens to make these projects certainly weren’t free. Second of all, all of these SaaS apps that don’t actually have a need for recurring charge probably should be paid one time. I don’t use Loom — I use CleanShot X and it was a one-time $30 payment and has a lot of great features I benefit from. I can’t reimplement it in $30 of tokens or $3…

No amount of what ifs and buts is going to change the fact that the tech is now mature enough to make software in hours that previously needed man-years.

And it is getting better at a pretty rapid pace.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#313

Post by spaceman_2020 » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #90

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you completely disregarding the data integrity and privacy aspects of rolling your own tools? I vibecode an app that only I use and store data locally. That means my data never leaves my device, I never have to share my email with anyone, never have to enter my credit card info anywhere You buy SaaS and you have to then login, share credit card info, and have your data stored in the cloud somewhere with godkn…

To my mind, this is the huge bit that should not be overlooked. So much infrastructure is there to support doing "it" in the Cloud, for all definitions of "it." If we can vibe-code bespoke one-offs to solve our problems, a lot of that Cloud interaction goes away... And that stuff is expensive and complicated. Hypothetically, open source app stores (I'm counting apt here) address this, but then it's someone else's sol…

There’s also speed - no matter what you do, a local app will simply be faster than using one from a SaaS provider

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#314

Post by anhner » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:06 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #223

Bishonen88 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most apps rationale for subscriptions is "Ongoing development" without an option like jetbrains etc. to fall back to a perpetual license. In practice, regardless of whether an app needs ongoing development or not, this is the best way to try to guarantee continuous income and make a living off of a project I guess. Perhaps LLM's will force developers/companies to change their stance and to stop users from recreating…

I just don't understand this naive argument against subscription. If I have to pay same amount of money, I will pay in subscription than paying one time. So let's say average subscription time is 2 years, they can make $400 onetime or $20/month to get the same revenue. As a consumer I will prefer the second option. For $40 product, I will rather pay $1/month than $40 once. It keeps the incentive aligned. I think most…

You wrongly assume that you are left with the SaaS product after paying for it for 2 years. For the one time payment, you will still have the software 2 years and more down the road.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#315

Post by bushido » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

I've been doing the same. I don't mind SaaS subscription fees, but I often run into things where I need a niche feature that doesn't exist.

Incidentally, I ran into something like this with WhisperFlow last year. Used it for a few weeks, loved it, basically hardly typed for the month and just spoke to my system/terminal etc.

But, I ran into a unique challenge. Barking orders at my computed for 8 hours a day made me realize that I was changing how I communicated with people. Being nicer was easier to solve, but speech-to-text made me less articulate. I wasn't very articulate to begin with -- which is something that I have wanted to solve for a while.

So I built my own STT app, that works in a similar way as whisperflow, with a few notable exceptions. Minor: it has dictionaries, snippets etc on a per app/website basis. Major: most notably it has rubrics on how I want to communicate in different contexts, ex: Biz Exec over email, Principle engineer in my ide/terminal. etc

And scores me on areas like conciseness, flow, logical flow/ease to follow, clarity etc. every time I say anything. 10 weeks in I'm noticeably more articulate than I've ever been.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#316

Post by HugoDz » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

First of all, I’m skeptical about these being free. Time isn’t free, and the tokens to make these projects certainly weren’t free. Second of all, all of these SaaS apps that don’t actually have a need for recurring charge probably should be paid one time. I don’t use Loom — I use CleanShot X and it was a one-time $30 payment and has a lot of great features I benefit from. I can’t reimplement it in $30 of tokens or $3…

One only compete against his own costs.

If you need $1M/y in subscriptions to build your software, you'll be outcompete by solos who needs $60k/y and don't care about the 100% churn of a one-time fee.

This is simply market optimization when the marginal cost of producing the good falls.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#317

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #315

I've been doing the same. I don't mind SaaS subscription fees, but I often run into things where I need a niche feature that doesn't exist. Incidentally, I ran into something like this with WhisperFlow last year. Used it for a few weeks, loved it, basically hardly typed for the month and just spoke to my system/terminal etc. But, I ran into a unique challenge. Barking orders at my computed for 8 hours a day made me r…

This feels like a far better reason to code your own; when your use case is just a bit too niche to ever be prioritized but you otherwise need a similar tool.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#318

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #241

For all the naysaying I wanted something that was “like languagereactor and anki put together” a few days ago and had it done in about two hours. And it runs on-device, because much of the time the whole reason for a cloud is to justify the subscription. And I can just install an apk (for now, I guess Google wants to steal that from us).

[deleted]

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#319

Post by szundi » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #315

I've been doing the same. I don't mind SaaS subscription fees, but I often run into things where I need a niche feature that doesn't exist. Incidentally, I ran into something like this with WhisperFlow last year. Used it for a few weeks, loved it, basically hardly typed for the month and just spoke to my system/terminal etc. But, I ran into a unique challenge. Barking orders at my computed for 8 hours a day made me r…

[dead]

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#320

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

First of all, I’m skeptical about these being free. Time isn’t free, and the tokens to make these projects certainly weren’t free. Second of all, all of these SaaS apps that don’t actually have a need for recurring charge probably should be paid one time. I don’t use Loom — I use CleanShot X and it was a one-time $30 payment and has a lot of great features I benefit from. I can’t reimplement it in $30 of tokens or $3…

Some of this "I can do it for free" stuff gives me the vibes of people who monitor gas prices every day. Only to drive 10 miles out of their way to save $0.30 a gallon filing their 15 gallon tank ($4.50 savings - $2.00 gas used - $X for time). They probably also buy an overpriced drink/snack for a net negative value proposition even if time is free.

Some of these things are the feeling of "getting a deal" or "screwing the system" and people can spend their time in whatever way brings them joy. I don't want to be a "markdown editor app developer" or whatever and would rather work on more creative endeavors. In the end, we give our time to get money and then trade our money for time but time is our only limited resource.