What you've made is just a hobby then, not a business. (Not that there's anything wrong with programming being a hobby - it's more about managing expectations)
One for example makes about $500 revenue with $200 expenses and 2 hours a year. It’s profitable, I’m not doing it because I like spending time on it - or I’d spend more time on it.
These aren’t traditional businesses, but they sure aren’t hobbies. They are services I think need to exist, and that I can create, without "wasting my time".
In contrast, a business would be going in with the intention of the service/app being successful (profitable or popular). Maybe hobby isn't the best way to describe it, but I agree your way of looking at things is closer to a hobby then a business.
For me weather something is a business or a hobby has more to do with outlook than anything else. A few lucky people have insanely profitable, and scalable hobbies with 1000s of employees, and plenty of kids are struggling to keep their lawn mowing biz afloat so they can afford a new video game.
Over the years I've been told that company I founded 8 years ago, and has been my and several other peoples's day job ever since, is a hobby for many reasons, including not enough W2 employees, revenue and so on. Which, even though these things were said to prop up the speakers egos, made me think on the topic - and this is what I've come up with.
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edit: totally rewritten
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The only real difference is that the author won't feel too much pain if it doesn't make a lot of money.
Just because the parent has reduced the risk of setting up a business doesn't mean he isn't setting up a business. There's no compelling reason to believe that the parent commenter has any smaller chance of success than any other business - but he surely has a smaller chance of making a significant loss.
Really? He stated in his comments that he doesn't plan to do anything for this site. No marketing, no publicity, nothing. His goal is to not lose money. Not to make money, just simply to not lose any. Do you think that has the same chance as success as someone who's only goal is to make money?
It goes back to my original comment on his post - if your #1 goal isn't making money, then you should consider it a hobby. That's not a bad thing at all, again, it's to keep things realistic with yourself.
Yes, or at least maybe. The viability of businesses is extremely low in almost all circumstances. Doing something creative and putting it out there with a will to get some income from it perhaps has no lower chance than a more aggressive business strategy.
By reducing the cost of running the business to near-zero, you extend your runway to near-infinite. I'd say it's as good a bet as a VC-funded startup which needs regular cash injections to survive infancy.
> if your #1 goal isn't making money
I understand why you are saying that, and given the state of the world, you may well be correct in your belief.
However, I find it an extreme and quite a negative view.
As a consumer, I (with my limited economic power) would rather support people and small businesses with a #1 goal of improving the world in at least a small way - perhaps those which you would probably call hobbies - rather than support things that have a primary or exclusive goal of making money.
I believe that having money as a primary focus will, slowly but surely, damage your business branding over time.
Thinking about it some more, most things I "fund" are a bit like this:
* Mailpile
* HabitRPG
* Ubuntu Phone (RIP)
Ethical criteria are not high on my list, but I try to apply them to the best of my knowledge when two competing services both meet my needs. E.g. LibreOffice vs Microsoft Office, and Starbucks vs local coffee house (if you count that as tech related), I tend to have an ethical preference for small and/or local businesses: I think it benefits me to support diversity and the local community.
Some nice tech companies that I'm aware of:
* Hog Bay Software
* 7 Generation Games