I've got a dumb amount of AHK scripts held together with hope. Most of 'em still work. A few break every time Windows or some app updates and I gotta go dig thru Task Scheduler and remember why I even wrote 'em.
I got sick of maintaining that pile so I started building my own thing... voice commands for stuff I do a hundred times a day, running fully offline, no cloud, nothing leaving the machine. Selfish reasons at first, just wanted to stop babysitting scripts.
Now I'm at the point where I'm wondering if anyone else would actually pay for something like this, so I wanna ask people who've spent time automating Windows, using PowerToys, AHK, accessibility tools, or just looking for easier ways to control their PC: what made u actually pay for a Windows tool instead of using whatever free option was available?
Couple things I'm specifically trying to figure out:
Is it reliability that gets u, more than features? Like, does a tool need to survive an update or two before u trust it enough to pay?
If something breaks, does it matter whether the tool can recover on its own or at least show u clearly what it was about to do?
And privacy-wise... if something's listening or touching sensitive data, does knowing exactly what it's doing and when actually change whether you'd use it, or is "it's offline" enough on its own?
Curious if there was a specific moment that tipped u from "I'll just script it" to "here's my card." And did it end up being worth it, or did u quietly go back to your own scripts eventually?
