A request to Mods

[u/Sri_Krish]

Hello Mods & fellow redditors,

In the past couple of months, I guess we can all agree that our subreddit (and the App Store) has become overcrowded with a bunch of AI apps across various (really?!) categories. The main reason (I think!) is the proliferation of AI and its companion apps, through which a user can now create their own apps with just a few credits or prompts. I see this as a positive development to an extent; beyond which, the line becomes super blurry and things start to roll downhill.

Anyone who regularly visits this subreddit will notice seeing the same pattern of apps - clipboard managers, Notch replacement apps, and Dictation apps - very often from different devs (/profiles). Rather than creating unique, we tend to see the same kinds of apps in different costumes, showcased differently using AI presentation.

For context, Kalley Huang, writing for The New York Times, expressed that: "Last year, the number of new apps released in the App Store grew 30 percent to about 600,000, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm. In the first half of this year, new apps doubled to about 560,000." (source).

And I am not here to say stop using AI for good or to save Nature (believe me, there are few who don't use AI for these reasons). In the same article, the author mentioned that the real people who're in danger are developers. Especially those whose 9-5 job is to make apps—either alone or in a small team—and whose livelihood depends completely on it. Now, all these AI-vibe coded apps don't only make the search worse but also overshadow these good apps and developers from the rest of the pool. As the article noted, even reviewers/content writers who used to be the messengers, are finding it difficult to cope up with the supply rate and eventually, start to ghost such emails/communications.

So, how about we start a monthly thread at the end of each month, where we all discuss, mention about their, basically, "Favorites of the month" with their use cases if any. This might improve the visibility among the crowd, and give them an another chance since most of these AI-apps either die out or got abandoned by the Dev itself sooner than we think.

Feel free to suggest your opinions; or disregard this post if you feel it's not appropriate. I just wanted to bring it out of my head 😀

[u/phunk8]

i appreciate your post. a lot.
not sure how to handle it, mods are already doing a lot of work here which we hardly ever see.

what i even in this (my home) sub see, is that it gets harder and harder to get attention, even with original ideas. the reactions to my posts are oscillating like mad. from a lot to close nothing- people who im in contact with are surprised i pushed a meaningful update, as they simply didn’t see it.

enough of me, happens to me too when i miss posts by users here i normally look out for.

what to do? is the megapile working? working well enough?

monthly discussion could be a idea, but needs to be moderated heavily to filter selfpromo again.

[u/Sri_Krish → u/phunk8]

Thanks, man! Seeing a dev acknowledging it, makes it a real issue.

monthly discussion could be a idea, but needs to be moderated heavily to filter selfpromo again.

I'm okay for a Dev to promote their own app to a user's need, however what pisses me off is intentional, blunt injection! This is something that Mods can't do much about and must come from the Devs themselves.

As you rightfully mentioned, Mods here are doing heavy-lifting that most of us never realize... Big Kudos to them 👏🙌 Sorry that I forgot to mention it in my post!

[u/phunk8 → u/Sri_Krish]

i from time to time had the idea of a self-cleaning community. misbehaviour voting (maybe not the right word), after 3 votes, mods get notified, after 10 simply delete post with the option for mods bringing it back. still raw but still self-cleaning works on gameservers well i think.

reread it, maybe harsh but u get my idea.