4 ms·

IoT, AI, biotech and possibly VR/AR (it's too soon to tell) are so development intensive, they are the purview of giant corporate teams, not indie developers.

• eksemplar 9y ago
  I think there are a lot of opportunities for indie development. We build a lot of more-story elderly housing and in those you have a doorbell and gate opening system. This used to be pretty costly because you needed a professional system with wiring and what not. These days we do it with IoT. Basically we run our own private and encrypted internet, LoraWAN, and we setup a small $10 door control in each apartment which connects to the main door via our slow private net. The components and software was developed by a single student at a hackaton. Similarly we have a lot of town history on record. We've given people access to this, and a group of student went around town setting up 957 little Bluetooth transmitters which emit these stories to their app all over town. Another example is a medicine cabin that monitors it patients/elders take their meds and automatically alarms staff if they don't which is something we offer today. The plastic bag and electronics that does it were developed by a small local bakery with two employees. I do agree with you in that some areas are going to require google sized companies. But things like the raspberry pi and all these small/cheap "standard" components which anyone can build themselves are really shaping up to change a lot of things and it's not big companies who are driving it forward.