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Your app subscription is now my weekend project

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Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#351

Post by eddguzzo »

neomantra wrote: post #71

I've been evangelizing vibe coding, because we are wielding something much more powerful now than even ~3 months prior (Nov was the turning point). Now that Prometheus (the myth, not the o11y tool) has dropped these LLMs on us, I've been using this thought experiment to consider the multi-layered implications: In a world where everyone can cook, why would anybody buy prepared food?

>In a world where everyone can cook, why would anybody buy prepared food?

I would guess for convenience and saving time. While vibe-coding might be faster, you still have to "do it". As in, think about what you want your software to do, write out or dictate your prompts, test that it works etc. That takes time (might be less time than writing it out by hand but it's still a non-zero amount of time).

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#352

Post by godelski »

jakub_g wrote: post #105

The people who pay for the apps vs people vibecode them are largely a different demographic. Linux is free, but most people don't mind to pay the Windows / macOS tax.

What about be people that search and use existing open source alternatives?

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#354

Post by idiotsecant »

somenameforme wrote: post #321
snarf21 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "screwi…

I'm one of those guys you speak of, that would do that fully knowingly. The point is principle. If I feel I'm being exploited, then I will refuse to deal with something/somebody even if it's in my own short term best interest. It's not really screwing the system so much as screwing people trying to screw me, and I find the satisfaction that gives me as being worth substantially more than whatever I might lose in mone…

'screwing the people who want to screw you' is a losing game. You're spending time you could spend doing something positive doing something that just arouses negative emotion.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#355

Post by jppope »

chasd00 wrote: post #99
theshrike79 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to download file attachments from a specific niche web forum that's behind login. I could've went looking for a browser plugin or a 3rd party tool to do it. Once again, it took me about an hour while watching my shows to get a custom one made. The first version operated by me downloading the pages one by one to a directory, the Python app parsed the html, downloaded the files and renamed according to thread nam…

That’s pretty great, I’ve done something similar by hand many moons ago. It was very tedious. I need a simple S3 compatible API to store some files with basic auth and ssl certs using let’s encrypt. Nothing crazy, Garage is overkill, Minio is overkill. I may see if Claude code can handle that for me using python or something. /btw, I work in consulting and the above project would have a budget of probably $100k and a…

As the saying goes: "for us to be replaceable, clients would need to know what they want and how to articulate it... we're safe"

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#356

Post by bko »

snarf21 wrote: post #320
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 "screwi…

Weekend projects are fun and a great way to experiment with new technologies. AI is this new technology and most engineer should be familiar with how useful it is and it's limitations.

Sure, if you hate coding it's prob not worth it. But I don't see it as an expense. In fact I value it so I would even not go as far as to deem a failure as a loss.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#357

Post by threetonesun »

arrozconcosas wrote: post #327

Somewhere along the line software went from being $99 for life to $9.99/month for life. The net result is massive inflation. I dusted off an old video game system recently and the game still played, through the end, for just the cost of electricity. I realize that maintenance is important and should be paid for, but let's be honest maintenance is a small sliver of your monthly subscription cost.

It was $99 for a specific version which (maybe) got updates. If you wanted the next version, it was another $99 (or maybe it was $129 now, or $149...).

Some software essentially maintains this model, and I think it's fine. If something is going to charge monthly I expect it to either be much cheaper, or have some web service that they need to keep up.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#359

Post by camdenreslink »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #68
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…

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…

It also means your data is one unfortunate coffee spill on the laptop keyboard from being gone forever. Unless you are doing your own cloud backups of your data and syncing it somehow. Which now the vibe coded app is really starting to grow in requirements then. Most people want that just handled for them.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#360

Post by carlosjobim »

throwup238 wrote: post #161
carlosjobim wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you cannot ever buy a cup of coffee, because it's also very bad value compared to Fastmail. Or a beer. > The vast majority of SaaS I look at are hardly worth two bucks a month, let alone tens. Then why are you looking at them,

I don’t buy cups of coffee unless it’s on vacation, brewed by a great barista with years of experience. Instead I have a $600 roaster, a $100 burr grinder, and a $10 Turkish coffee pot that have produced many thousands of good cups of coffee over more than a decade. Including the cost of bulk beans, I probably spend about as much on my caffeine addiction as 1password and Fastmail combined. Seems like a decent value t…

> How can I evaluate their value if I don’t even look at them?

There are no subscription services which can beat Fastmail, iCloud, Kagi or YouTube in value for your dollar. So you can stop looking.

There are many subscription services which offer good or even great value, or mediocre. But since you demand that value has to be better or equal than the great value Fastmail gives you for you to be interested, then I'm telling you that you're not going to find it.

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