Hey everyone,
I’m just a regular computer science sophomore — good grades, decent at sports, fairly popular on campus.
And then I met her.
She’s from a very wealthy family. Think luxury cars, vacations in Europe, the kind of girl who never has to worry about money. I, on the other hand, come from a humble background — my parents are working-class, and I still tutor high school kids to cover my living expenses.
We fell in love anyway. We’d spend nights walking around campus, talking about our dreams. She told me she loved that I was ambitious, that I had a fire in me. But when her parents found out, they were against us being together.
They told her, “He can’t give you the life you deserve.”
That hit me hard. And in my naïve, movie-like brain, I thought: “Fine. I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll build something, make some money, and show them I can take care of her.”
So I took all my savings, bought a second-hand MacBook, and spent three months building a macOS utility app. I worked late nights in the library, skipped parties, even missed a few basketball games. This app became my hope, my proof that love can conquer all.
Last week, I finally launched it on the Mac App Store.
The next morning, I was thrilled to see it ranking #128 in the Photography category:
I thought, This is it! This is the turning point of my life! Maybe I could even text her: “Look, I did it.”
Then I checked the numbers in App Store Connect:
I just sat there staring at the screen. Three months of work, all my savings, and a dream of proving myself — and this is it?
I always thought there were hundreds of millions of Mac users worldwide — if my app is ranked that high, does that mean… nobody is actually using the Mac App Store anymore?
I’m honestly heartbroken. Not just about my app, but about my love story, my dream of proving myself.
Has the Mac App Store really become irrelevant?
• Are there still users out there buying apps?
• How do indie devs survive here?
• Should I take my app somewhere else (Setapp? Gumroad?) or just give up?
Any advice — technical, business, or even romantic — would mean a lot to me right now. 🙏
I’m just a regular computer science sophomore — good grades, decent at sports, fairly popular on campus.
And then I met her.
She’s from a very wealthy family. Think luxury cars, vacations in Europe, the kind of girl who never has to worry about money. I, on the other hand, come from a humble background — my parents are working-class, and I still tutor high school kids to cover my living expenses.
We fell in love anyway. We’d spend nights walking around campus, talking about our dreams. She told me she loved that I was ambitious, that I had a fire in me. But when her parents found out, they were against us being together.
They told her, “He can’t give you the life you deserve.”
That hit me hard. And in my naïve, movie-like brain, I thought: “Fine. I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll build something, make some money, and show them I can take care of her.”
So I took all my savings, bought a second-hand MacBook, and spent three months building a macOS utility app. I worked late nights in the library, skipped parties, even missed a few basketball games. This app became my hope, my proof that love can conquer all.
Last week, I finally launched it on the Mac App Store.
The next morning, I was thrilled to see it ranking #128 in the Photography category:
I thought, This is it! This is the turning point of my life! Maybe I could even text her: “Look, I did it.”
Then I checked the numbers in App Store Connect:
I just sat there staring at the screen. Three months of work, all my savings, and a dream of proving myself — and this is it?
I always thought there were hundreds of millions of Mac users worldwide — if my app is ranked that high, does that mean… nobody is actually using the Mac App Store anymore?
I’m honestly heartbroken. Not just about my app, but about my love story, my dream of proving myself.
Has the Mac App Store really become irrelevant?
• Are there still users out there buying apps?
• How do indie devs survive here?
• Should I take my app somewhere else (Setapp? Gumroad?) or just give up?
Any advice — technical, business, or even romantic — would mean a lot to me right now. 🙏
