Is learning how to code apps worth it?

[Windows95]

I've seen some numbers of games and they are pretty low compared to the amount of time you need to code the game. So yeah, whats the point in working hard when dumb apps go viral and make tons of money? or just videos.

 

I mean effort:reward from what i've seen it's not worth it, most of the time you don't get enough traffic to convert in money, and most money comes from ad revenue these days. And im talking about a solo project. If you have to spend money on wages to hire people then it's a mess.

 

I like the idea of making stuff, uploading it and making passive income from the visits. With videos and websites you can do this, but they take less time to create than an app, so im not sure if its worth it, specially if you want to create an app that is rather complex, like a game that is not super simple etc.

 

You could say "but you can use that as a portfolio to get hired in x". Getting hired is so difficult and it really sucks compared to being your own boss...

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're only in the game to make money, I'd argue you're in it for the wrong reasons.

 

Also, it takes a massive amount of luck to even get popular enough. Even if you're at that point, that thing you created isn't going to set you for life. You have to keep making more things that people want. PSY isn't set for life just because Gangnam Style got so damn popular (in fact, I think the viewership basically leveled off).  Or the alternative is take the money you made and throw it into something that will grow.

 

Either way, if you want to make money, you're going to have to work at it.

[Windows95]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

If you're only in the game to make money, I'd argue you're in it for the wrong reasons.

 

Also, it takes a massive amount of luck to even get popular enough. Even if you're at that point, that thing you created isn't going to set you for life. You have to keep making more things that people want. PSY isn't set for life just because Gangnam Style got so damn popular (in fact, I think the viewership basically leveled off).  Or the alternative is take the money you made and throw it into something that will grow.

 

Either way, if you want to make money, you're going to have to work at it.

Pretty sure PSY is set for life, so did notch with Minecraft, or any of those popular apps/games that constantly get downloads

[Lorant]

6 minutes ago, Windows95 said:

Pretty sure PSY is set for life, so did notch with Minecraft, or any of those popular apps/games that constantly get downloads

And they're the 0.0001% that did.  Like anything else, if you chase after that 1 success story.  Or do you think every kid playing pee wee league football is going to make 100Mil a year in the pros?

[Windows95]

2 minutes ago, Lorant said:

And they're the 0.0001% that did.  Like anything else, if you chase after that 1 success story.  Or do you think every kid playing pee wee league football is going to make 100Mil a year in the pros?

Im talking about having a realistic goal like $2k a month passively (passively as in, the traffic is making you that, but you continue working on more stuff on the meantime)

 

I wouldn't be able to have a job and take orders. It's already an headache learning to program, imagine having to do it for things you don't like. Nice way to become insane and it doesnt even pay that good.

[Mira Yurizaki]

21 minutes ago, Windows95 said:

Pretty sure PSY is set for life, so did notch with Minecraft, or any of those popular apps/games that constantly get downloads

PSY is set for life because he's a popular K-Pop artist with multiple albums. Not because he made a single song that broke a record on YouTube.

 

Notch is set for life because he worked on Minecraft for years to constantly improve it even after releasing it as a public alpha, not because he released a single version of it and sat on his ass all day afterwards.

 

You don't get 'set for life' by releasing one thing and be done with it. Also, again, luck plays a role. I'm sure PSY had plenty of songs nobody cared about before Gangnam Style (at least outside of South Korea who already isn't into K-Pop) or Notch had plenty of programming projects that went no where.

 

Or if we were to poke at another success story, Toby Fox and Undertale. That wasn't his first programming/game project. That wasn't even his first creative work. And likely the only reason why Undertale took off is because Fox was already involved in something prominently that had a large following.

 

These people didn't just poop out a single thing on their first try and suddenly got rich and famous. They had to work for it. I mean sure, you can have cases like Flappy Wings where some kid (likely as an early project) cobbled together some 2D assets, applied some basic physics, and got a revenue stream from it because of how popular it got, but the odds of that happening to you is like winning the lottery.

 

If you think this doesn't make learning how to program worthwhile, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. If you want to make passive revenue streams, get yourself into investing. Not programming.

[Sauron]

If your only goal is to make money with the least amount of effort, programming is not for you.

 

 

 

You're probably never going to make a viral app, so if you like making apps then the way you make money with them (as a self employed developer) is to take commissions: make someone else's app for a fee.

[MoVo]

Programming takes a lot of time and effort, you'll have to learn a lot until you'll be able to make a good game that people would be willing to pay for in some way. If you're only in for the money and expect a easy passive income, then you're about as wrong as you can be.

There is no such thing as easy passive income. Everybody wo makes a decent passive income, worked a lot on it, no matter if this income is generated by building games, websites, mobile apps or something totally different. You'll always need to be good at what you want to sell, before you can make money from that. Everybody who tells you something different is most likely lying to you.

Notch is also a bad example. Minecraft seems like an simple game, but building it completely alone and from skretch takes quite a lot of effort. Also, he continued developing it for years, hired other developers etc. before he made lots of money with Minecraft.

[straight_stewie]

Software development is "worth it" to me solely for the learning aspect of it.

I've never been paid or otherwise made money from any software development I've done, but I still do it and I plan to keep doing it. And I don't plan to make any money from it either. If that happens, it happens, otherwise it doesn't, and that's ok.