They usually seem really serious about it. I dunno. I definitely don't go out of my way to bring what I do into a conversation or to focus on it if it comes up, because most folks find computers incredibly boring, and nothing I do with them is particularly interesting. I do tend to encourage people to talk about what they do, mostly out of habit from product "discovery" work. It's often, like, plumbers or whoever, not other software-adjacent folks, who light up and tell me about this great idea that'd love to have available, if they find out what I do... and it's almost always something that already exists, and not even in a "you could just do that with Excel and email" sort of way, but purpose-built apps for what they want.

Not that you shouldn't ever enter an existing market, it's just that I always get a little kick out of how they claim this app would be super-useful and I should build it, but they've been a couple taps away from having what they want for, potentially, years. It demonstrates the gap between "you should build this, I would use it, it would be very helpful!" and how potential customers actually behave.