a hopeless update

I got back from a trip and finished moving into a new place.

I thought the trip would be enjoyable and the move would feel like a relief. Instead, it's been the opposite. I was stressed the entire trip, and I'm still stressed now, looking at a half-unpacked apartment. The stress on the trip wasn't about the trip itself — it was work and money, which I couldn't stop thinking about no matter where I was.

I'm having trouble being an adult who doesn't really earn a living. Some income still comes in from a previous job, so it isn't zero, but the thing I spend most of my time on doesn't pay. Framed that way, I feel small in a way that's difficult to shake. It isn't about any single moment. It's more like a background hum that grew louder over the course of the trip. I've been watching friends in other fields deal with something in the same key for a while now — entry-level work thinning out, the ways in getting narrower. I noticed it. I just didn't think it would land on me quite like this.

Part of what makes it hum louder is that I've started to doubt app development itself as something worth doing. Is it because I keep comparing it to YouTube? The channel isn't large either, but at least the watch time rises every day. I can see it, even if the numbers are modest. The apps are a different story. Downloads haven't crossed single digits in a month, and paid sales sit at one unit total. I can't picture making a living from this.

And then the field keeps moving while I'm standing still. I was gone for about ten days, and in those ten days AI moved forward again. Claude 4.7 was released, and the model started handling design work. The developer communities I follow were discussing things I hadn't come across before. I returned to find a little more distance between where the field is and where I am. There are so many capable developers, and I'm not sure what I can offer that they couldn't produce faster.

My goal is $99 in app revenue by July 29 and 400 hours of YouTube watch time by December 5. The latter feels within reach. The former, I honestly have no confidence in. But if I stop developing apps, what would I do instead? The YouTube channel is a work-with-me channel, and I can't film work-with-me videos without any work to do. So what work would that be?

Or maybe it's too early to decide any of this. The first app has been out for less than six months, and the second one barely over a month. Calling it at this point would be premature by any standard. If I'm going to keep going, each app deserves at least a year — which means November for the first one and sometime next year for the second. The question then becomes how to handle income in the meantime.

Writing is one option. Another is the new YouTube channel I'm planning to start in May, which is an entirely different genre from the current one. I lost some confidence on the trip, about that too, so the motivation isn't really there right now. But even if I start the new channel, it wouldn't bring in immediate income either. Game development is still on the table as another option, but that also wouldn't bring in immediate income.

An immediate source of income is harder to find than I expected. The jobs that used to be a way in are mostly gone, and what's left tends to go to people who already have a foothold. I've been watching this happen to others for a while now. It just feels different when I'm the one standing in it.