@simonemontalto@mastodon.social

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

So the question I keep asking myself is not only how to explain this better, but whether explanation is enough. Maybe some users will always prefer free, regardless of the tradeoffs. And that is okay. My role, as an indie developer, is to be honest about the choices I make. Paid apps are not a punishment. They are the visible cost of keeping everything else invisible. No tracking, no ads, no data extraction.

2

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

The problem was not the UI. The problem was that the workflow itself was not simple. By trying to compress it into fewer controls, I only obscured the steps. Users lost orientation, not complexity. Good design is not about reducing elements. It is about revealing structure. Sometimes that means adding a label. Sometimes that means separating actions that should never be merged. Sometimes that means accepting that a process has more than one step.

2

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Simplification becomes dangerous when it turns into erasure. You remove affordances, remove explanations, remove visual anchors, and suddenly the user has no sense of where they are or what will happen next. The interface looks elegant but feels opaque. I try to design with a different principle. Make things as simple as they can be, but no simpler than the logic of the task allows. Clarity over minimalism. Meaning over aesthetics.

2

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Some of the most intuitive interfaces I have ever built were not the ones with the fewest elements, but the ones where every element had a clear purpose and communicated that purpose without ambiguity. Minimal design is beautiful, but it must stay honest. When simplicity hides complexity instead of guiding the user through it, the product stops being simple. It becomes silent in the wrong way.

2

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

👀

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

When someone compares my app to a free alternative, they are often comparing two very different products. Not in features, but in philosophy. One optimises for growth, engagement or data. The other optimises for privacy, calm and long term trust.

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

I build software for people who value that tradeoff. For those who prefer to pay once and know exactly what happens to their data. It may never be everyone. But I believe it should always be an option.

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

This choice has a direct consequence. If you do not monetise attention, behaviour or personal data, you remove the main mechanism that makes “free” apps financially viable. You cannot extract value invisibly. You have to be explicit about how the app is sustained. Many free apps are not free in the economic sense. They are paid with data, profiling, behavioural tracking or advertising. Often this cost is abstract, delayed or hidden well enough that it does not feel like a cost at all.

0

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

They come from an old metaphor: the email inbox. In email, an unread message meant something very specific. A real person was waiting for your reply. When that same visual language was applied to feeds, libraries, books, movies, series, games, something subtle changed. The obligation stayed. The human on the other side disappeared.

0

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

A badge saying “new content available” looks exactly like a badge saying “someone is waiting for you”. But no one actually is. Still, the interface creates urgency. A quiet pressure. A sense that you’re late, behind, or neglecting something. That’s what phantom obligation means to me. Feeling responsible for something that never asked for your attention in the first place. Over time, this can turn leisure into debt. Books to catch up on. Episodes piling up.

0

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

So in my apps, I chose not to use notifications or badges for new content. Not because I don’t want you to enjoy it. But because I don’t want the interface to make you feel like you owe it something. The content is there when you’re ready. No pressure. No anxiety. If you want to explore this idea more, I highly recommend reading the full essay here: https://www.terrygodier.com/phantom-obligation/ascii

terrygodier.com

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

This makes me wonder if the message is not landing strongly enough. Or if, for many people, privacy still feels like an abstract concern. Something important in theory, but easy to ignore in practice. Especially when the immediate benefit is a free download.

0

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

The difficult part is that privacy is not something you “notice” when it works. You notice it only when it is gone. When data is leaked. When behaviour is profiled. When incentives quietly shift and the product changes direction. I do not think people are wrong for choosing free apps. Different users have different priorities. But I do think we are entering a time where the long term cost of “free” software is becoming harder to ignore. And where owning your data starts to matter more.

0

1

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

This quote is a good reminder to be cautious. When a product is built mainly to attract investment or an acquisition, user happiness is rarely the final goal.
Often the real product is the team, the growth metrics, or the exit. As users, trusting blindly is rarely a good idea.

0

Simone Montalto @simonemontalto@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

A reading app is trending right now. It’s VC backed and heavily built around AI. That’s one approach.

@BookTracker@indieapps.space was built the other way around. No investors. No growth hacks.
No AI deciding what you read or how you should read it.

Your library stays on your devices. Your reading data isn’t used to train models. Book Tracker grows slowly, funded only by the people who use it. It’s designed to be calm, predictable, and long lasting. AI has its place. But reading doesn’t need to be optimized.

0