I will no longer be working on Mlem.
I started it a year and a half ago when I needed to take my mind off pain from surgery. And I always intended it to be a personal protect that would help me relax.
With the current development of the app, I no longer find being a part of the project relaxing or fun.
I’m not doing any coding anymore, since it’s all done by much more talented and experienced people. If I tried to contribute to my app now, as an outsider, I would be rejected. I’m also not doing much project management. I feel like I don’t have much voice in the development anymore.
I’m also getting backlash for trying to make the app accessible to the average person as opposed to just tech nerds, and it’s not worth the stress. This is happening mostly in my DMs (the other developers are not doing this, so please don’t go after them. They are very nice and would never do this), since some elements of this and Mastodon community don’t have the balls to face me in public.
These are just some of the many reasons I found working on the app for the last few weeks frustrating. Ever since the app exploded in popularity and the community grew, I can say that even thinking about working on Mlem made me instantly angry, annoyed and just overall pissed off.
It’s just not worth it anymore.
The current TestFlight version will keep working for two more days, after which I will erase the app from the App Store. Until then, someone from the team will have given you a new link. I have also transferred the app’s source code to a new owner.
I have released a new version just before posting this, and it’s the last version I have any influence on. The community will continue working on the app.
I will focus on my other apps, which will hopefully not become like Mlem.
Enjoy life, and don’t try to contact me.
There is unfortunately a culture of entitlement and harassment that is absolutely pervasive on the internet. There’s a special kind of tech harassment and entitlement which emerged on the internet from stackflow, github and other major websites which put up with people grandstanding their ideals and shitting on other people who don’t have enough experience or are asking simple questions or demanding changes or hijacking reports to share one’s own ideals which lead to nice people like OP simply leaving these spaces.
Please think twice before demanding something of a developer, and admin, a moderator. Think about what you’re putting out into the world. There’s another human behind that screen, extend them a little faith. Ask yourself what you can do to help, before demanding something of others.
Even well-intended messages can be suffocating. All it takes is an explosion in popularity due to circumstances outside your control (like we’re seeing here), and suddenly you’re inundated with GitHub issues, PRs, conversations, important decisions, critical incidents that need a response and so on. Even if you’re full-time on it and salaried (which most open source devs aren’t), you simply can’t keep up with the volume - dozens, hundreds or thousands of other contributors trying to contact you, debating every aspect of your decisions, technical and social. The toll on mental health can be significant, especially to those personalities who like to stay organised and on top of things.
As a non-coding user on TestFlight / Memmy, I feel bad sending in errors and functionality requests, because I assume that the devs are busy people, and I’m just happy that they’re working on things. This stuff is all SO new that I can’t imagine it’s anything other than a passion project to produce an app like this.