“If you're building an app that you care about that you're passionate about that's you think is solving a problem or whatever whatever motivates you these businesses can be pretty sticky and durable.”

Caring about what you build is an unfair advantage clones can not copy

Apollo survived a decade and built one of the most devoted user bases in indie mobile history because Christian genuinely loved Reddit. That care showed in every detail: the gesture system, the comment threading, the design polish. A clone can copy features but can't replicate the judgment of someone who uses the product every day for years.