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I don't see why it would take years to learn to write an app in Swift or Kotlin (or React Native or Flutter), even starting from zero. I'm not trying to be cute

I don't see why it would take years to learn to write an app in Swift or Kotlin (or React Native or Flutter), even starting from zero. I'm not trying to be cute here. There are probably 50 high quality end to end tutorial for building a video streaming app. I guess using Firebase is tying you in to a service, but so what? If it's for 4 friends it doesn't have to be infinitely scalable. Just by writing an iOS app you're tied to Apple, right? And surely an app isnt a failure just because it has dependencies?

TeMPOraL 7y ago
If I were a non-programmer, I'd not have time to learn the basics of Swift or Kotlin even if it took only a month, if all I wanted was to build a small app for friends. With Apple I already have to deal with by virtue of owning an iPhone, but I would be reluctant to enter a relationship with another party just for the sake of my small app. On top of that, careful observation of the space tells you that an app is likely to outlive its service dependencies. Dependencies you don't own are a liability. The less you have of them, the better.