SMRTR ProgrammingJan 29, 2026Dev.to

It's hard to make money from software alone

SMRTR summary

A developer reflects on the challenging economics of software businesses, citing market saturation from AI-generated products, declining freelance opportunities, and unstable sponsorship models. The piece explores various monetization paths including indie hacking, open source development, and employment, concluding that physical world businesses offer more reliable income than software ventures.

SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Dev.to.

Read the original article
SMRTR Programming

Get the next batch of curated stories in your inbox.

This archive is built from SMRTR newsletter stories. Subscribe for hand-picked stories without the extra noise.

Related Stories

Browse Programming
ProgrammingAug 25, 2026

The End of Programming

AI rewrote Bun's entire JavaScript runtime—one million lines of code in eleven days—for ~$165,000, with minimal human involvement. As AI-generated code surges exponentially,...