While you could get by making $1000 a month in Minnesota, that isn't sustainable for the long term since you could just go get a programming job where you earn

While you could get by making $1000 a month in Minnesota, that isn't sustainable for the long term since you could just go get a programming job where you earn over $1000 a week. If you aren't making $100,000 a year developing your application then you are losing a lot of money once you factor in opportunity cost. Regarding competition from our foreign friends: I think we are both thinking the same way here. Right now, we don't really have to worry about ultra-cheap competition too much. Eventually, I think we will--the cultural advantages you speak of are a short-term advantage, not a long-term one. My Thai friends already know a lot about Western culture because they deal with us all day long in Thailand. Whatever they don't know, they can learn. But, almost none of my Thai friends could afford to buy an iPhone right now; even if they could, they work 80 hours a week at their job so they wouldn't have time to develop anything for it. But, slowly, all of that is changing.