It doesn't matter if your app is shit

aabiji.github.io

1 point·aabiji··4 comments

Explain Flappy Bird. The programmer was a nobody, and the code was sloppy, but the game was addictive and free with ads.

I used to work as a programmer analyst at a law firm, it didn't matter if my coworkers code was shit because I fixed it for them. I debugged their spaghetti code and made it work fast without memory leaks. I was often told that I had to do it because nobody else could. Until I got sick and went on short-term disability, they had to hire a contractor at $100/hr to try to do what I did, and even then, they couldn't do just as good a job as me.

I think Flappy Bird and other viral things like that are definitely exceptions to the trend, where the creator gets popular because of their product, not the other way around. I think generally the point I was trying to make was that already being popular makes marketing a product incredibly easier.

I'm not really sure what you mean by the more "popular" people have people go in and clean their mess behind the scenes, because the outcome is still ultimately the same in the end.

Good point though.

So a shit app by a famous person is going to get a lot of attention but very few sticky users and fall off the radar quickly. A great app by a random person will build steam over time and become a sleeper hit.

and get acquired and shutdown.

R.I.P. Dark Skies

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