“when you're on the mobile platform all this payments and sales tax thing is handled by Apple and Google and that was really a good point for me to start there”

App Store handles payments so solo devs can focus on product

For solo developers building consumer apps, the App Store acts as merchant-of-record: it handles payments, sales tax, and compliance across thousands of jurisdictions automatically. On the web, a solo founder would need to deal with all of that themselves — which is prohibitive for a consumer lifestyle app. HabitKit earned $110K in the first five months of 2024 without ever managing a payment flow.