[jonathanstrange]

I agree, many app makers don't seem to realize that any long-term sustainable software needs to be based on deep know-how (or: tons of features and a strong lead), something that cannot be easily copied. Otherwise it will be copied a thousand times anyway. Some of the copy-cats will have strong financial backing, others will be students in a poor country with almost unlimited time and extremely low costs, and yet others will have extreme marketing skills and channels.

That's not to say you cannot make money with trivial ideas. It just seems obvious to me that such apps cannot last very long and you have to go with quantity instead of quality in that case.

[paul_f]

You can also be successful by going deep into a vertical. Be the best for a specific use case and repeat.