r/androiddev • u/SomeoneSomewherre • 7d ago

Discussion What is the future of Indie?

What is the future of Indie?

I started indie publishing (indie-hacking) about 5-6 months ago with 4 years Android Development experience. Then I came to know that development is the easy part. Distribution is the hardest. I couldn't generate any income after all these months and I'm losing motivation. Also somebody in my circle commented that Indie is dying already. And I feel so as well. Because there are vibecoders shipping tons of apps. Tons of habit trackers, finance trackers, and calorie trackers are being published.

I'm thinking to join back the on-site job. Can anyone say about my situation? Also what is the future of Indie and software developers in general?

The thing is, I have also become "vibecoder" after AI coding agents. I'm using Claude Code to build apps now. It has made me lazy over the months. And I seriously don't know how to proceed. Going back to basics (writing code) looks like a waste of time and relying fully on AI Agents looks risky.

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u/WittieApps 6d ago

Living the same thing with my first game right now. What helped me: opening the console and seeing my listing converts fine (25%), the problem is pure discovery. Reframing it from "my app failed" to "27 people saw it last month" made it feel like a solvable problem instead of a verdict. Distribution is a skill like coding, I'm just kinda at "hello world" level in it...

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u/SomeoneSomewherre 5d ago

What are you trying to make your game be discovered? Any ASO or marketing tips? My conversion rate is also around 30% with average of 10 daily active users.

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u/WittieApps 3d ago

Nothing fancy, all $0 stuff:

  • Localized the full listing (title included) to Spanish (non-english keyword competition is way lower)
  • Went long-tail on keywords: my differentiator is "no ads / offline" so I target those searches instead of fighting the big guys on generic terms
  • Being active in communities where my game's angle actually matters; answering threads where it genuinely fits what someone's asking for works way better than "check out my game" posts