Would you pay $5 for a CRUD app?

Question

If so, what stack? If not, why not?I was thinking about building a Code Generator that built the initial crud pages for a given data model.And I was thinking I would pay about $5, to save a couple of days worth of work. To get a head start on an MVP.

PaulHoule · Accepted Answer

It puzzles economists and certainly me that people often behave as if the value of their time is zero. This turns up in mysteries such as why people commute so far, why grandmothers make scarfs out of acrylic instead of wool yarn, etc.
A "couple days of work" could be 3 to 5, U.S. minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and if you work 8 hours a day that is $174 to $290.
A real wage for a developer in the U.S. is probably 10x that. A company I worked for charged $2000-$3000 for a simple interactive web site, probably more like $20,000 for a serious application with a fair number of screens.
I rarely do "free trials" of products, particularly when I am working for somebody else. Giving a product a fair evaluation could be week or more of work, which won't pay off unless I buy the product. If I am working for someone else I have to not only convince myself but may also need to convince my boss, convince my boss's boss, ...
Similiarly I see all kinds of hand-wringing from people who are afraid that they are going to exceed the free tier on AWS and get a bill for $2.
I am a big fan of low code, I think the world still needs a web-based version of the old Microsoft Access. Why that doesn't exist is beyond me, but I will say (1) Firebase isn't it, and (2) whenever somebody does make one they seem to quickly get bought and shut down.

jklein11 · Answer

I would pay $5 for a CRUD app. I would pay a great deal more than $5 for a CRUD app that meets all of my specifications. I would pay a considerable amount less for tooling to help me create a web app to my specifications. In order for me to pay it would have to be better than existing tools like Django and ROR which are free.

jakemal · Answer

I'll plug [Prefab](https://github.com/neighborhoods/Prefab), the project I've been working on for the last year and a half that was recently open sourced. We use it to generate most of our HTTP backend services and it's been really successful. It makes it extremely easy to generate actors and the related machinery to expose them over HTTP.

sarcasmatwork · Answer

I've already seen github repos with a free MEAN stack template. I've seen various others over time that have been posted here.Maybe create it, and make it free.. but also give people the ability to donate to you because your time is valuable.

gt2 · Answer

I would think that for the code to be useful, the developer will know how to use the framework it was generated in and thus is easily able to quickly generate the same thing as you are (be it with ROR scaffold or using a boilerplate in Django, Node.js, etc).

whb07 · Answer

Kind of like Ruby on Rails?

memn0nis · Answer

There are quite a few no-code / low-code companies that are trying to do this. I like the idea in general, but haven't found one that actually works for the products I try to build

p0d · Answer

The badly named grocery crud for php is pretty decent. I would target something similar on another stack for devs who won&rsquo;t touch php.

Would you pay $5 for a CRUD app?

If so, what stack? If not, why not?
I was thinking about building a Code Generator that built the initial crud pages for a given data model.
And I was thinking I would pay about $5, to save a couple of days worth of work. To get a head start on an MVP.

I've already seen github repos with a free MEAN stack template. I've seen various others over time that have been posted here.
Maybe create it, and make it free.. but also give people the ability to donate to you because your time is valuable.

I would think that for the code to be useful, the developer will know how to use the framework it was generated in and thus is easily able to quickly generate the same thing as you are (be it with ROR scaffold or using a boilerplate in Django, Node.js, etc).

Kind of like Ruby on Rails?

There are quite a few no-code / low-code companies that are trying to do this. I like the idea in general, but haven't found one that actually works for the products I try to build

The badly named grocery crud for php is pretty decent. I would target something similar on another stack for devs who won’t touch php.