Yes I too miss the days where I could walk 6 miles into to town to go the general store. The grind of making every step myself, learning the path to avoid the mud, the rock in my shoe that just wouldn’t leave. Good times. Cars suck.
Kidding aside. The human brain has unsurprisingly a huge attachment to effort and equates it with perceived value of a process and outcome.
Whether one spent 20 years developing a general cure for cancer or just magicked one into existence right now does not change the immense value many could gain from it.
Writing software was never about the value to the writer it was about the value to the user.
In the past, one could care less about the user to an extent because they simply enjoyed the process or “grind” of building. There were signs like the engineer that went off to fix a bug and took 2 weeks rebuilding some part of some system delaying the overall feature or product release. The excuse being that it was of course necessary and good development takes time.
Now one may be able to fix that bug in minutes and anything that takes longer than an hour with AI is more seriously questioned as necessary. Sometimes it still is but more often than not that engineer simply wanted to build, to grind on a problem at the cost of potential user value.
What does a "pure" indie solo hacker do? What does sustainable mean to you?
Not to assume your definitions but in my experience I often get the impression that "pure" means one just gets to code and not worry about anything else.
"indie" means one gets to pick what to code, how to code, when to code, why to code, etc.
"solo" means not having to deal with anyone one doesn't want to deal with.
"hacker" means standards, processes, tests, commits to main, etc. are only necessary when and if one wants them to be.
"sustainable" means at an equivalent or more income and less or similar costs as a job where someone else handles the marketing, sales, legal, design, anything one doesn't want/like to do as well as absorbing most of the downside risks of market shifts, loss of customers, competitor moves, etc. Additionally, one can go on vacation whenever they want and the income keeps coming.
All of this for as long as one wants the situation to last.
Sounds great to many I'm sure as it basically describes being a wealthy gentleman inventor/scientist/artist in 1880s England.
Most activities are hobbies until someone other than the participant is paying for it. Most everyone has a status of amateur until they get paid then convert to professional.
There are a lot of nuances in above statements and hobby and amateur are not reflective of lack of quality or expertise. There are I'm sure many hobbyists building wood chairs of finer quality than anyone can buy anywhere. It's up to them if they want to get paid for it.
May sound harsh to the person wanting their hobbies to be paid for unconditionally but if you're the one doing the paying it's reasonable to expect something out of the deal.
Kidding aside. The human brain has unsurprisingly a huge attachment to effort and equates it with perceived value of a process and outcome.
Whether one spent 20 years developing a general cure for cancer or just magicked one into existence right now does not change the immense value many could gain from it.
Writing software was never about the value to the writer it was about the value to the user.
In the past, one could care less about the user to an extent because they simply enjoyed the process or “grind” of building. There were signs like the engineer that went off to fix a bug and took 2 weeks rebuilding some part of some system delaying the overall feature or product release. The excuse being that it was of course necessary and good development takes time.
Now one may be able to fix that bug in minutes and anything that takes longer than an hour with AI is more seriously questioned as necessary. Sometimes it still is but more often than not that engineer simply wanted to build, to grind on a problem at the cost of potential user value.