Indie hackers & farmer's markets

Quality software from independent makers is like quality food from the farmer’s market. A jar of handmade organic jam is not the same as mass-produced corn syrup-laden jam from the supermarket. Industrial fruit jam is filled with cheap ingredients and shelf stabilizers. Industrial software is filled with privacy-invasive trackers and proprietary formats. – Steph Ango, founder of Obsidian

Absolutely LOVE that metaphor.

I wrote once about how as an indie hacker I’d love to be the digital equivalent of those neighbourhood convenience stores we’ve all learned to appreciate. But this farmer’s market metaphor is even better.

Because it really brings out the hand-crafted, small batch, done with love sort of product philosophy that I’ve come to really enjoy. My products really are the digital equivalent of “handmade organic jam”.

It’s done with care, with passion, not unlike the vibe we indie hackers bring to our software.
When you buy from the farmer’s market there’s a sense of familiarity and personal connection to the producers, just like when you buy from indie hackers and get a welcome or support email directly from the CEO.
You get to talk to the farmer about how their jam, meat or eggs are made, how the animals or crops are cared for, if they used pesticides, added additives. Same here how you can chat casually with an indie hacker about their software.
And I hope just like people don’t mind paying more at a farmer’s market for organic home-made jam, they don’t mind doing the same for indie software.

It’s a romantic notion of software development.

Maybe some of you will cringe a little…

I realised that the older I get the more hopelessly sentimental I become, it seems. Or maybe it’s from years of experience of losing my past—schools that I used to attend being torn down, malls thick with memory that I used to haunt with my friends are gone, things and food I grew up with are no longer sold and made.

So this is something worth keeping. Worth working hard for.

Not just for myself but for others.

And I’m not just talking about how we lament the disappearance of farmer’s markets in our modern cities.