I rebuilt my anti-doomscroll app from scratch — and yes, it has a subscription now (don't leave, I can explain)

About a year ago I posted here about Ugh Okay — a dumb little button that tells you what to do when your brain refuses to decide. No login, no cloud, no monetization, built mostly for me.

So naturally, I did the unreasonable thing: I rebuilt the whole app from scratch.

What's new in v2

The first version was React Native via Expo. The new one is native Swift, iOS only — mostly because I wanted the thing that v1 never had: a home screen widget. It sits right where TikTok used to sit. Your thumb does the autopilot reach, and instead of a feed it hits one small thing to do. That's the whole trick — catching the reflex before the app even opens.

The focus sharpened too. V1 was "I don't know what to do with myself." V2 is openly about one enemy: doomscrolling. Your brain vs. The Algorithm. The brain now wears a hard hat. It's been through a lot.

Same DNA though: no account, no ads, no tracking, your activities never leave your device.

Okay, the money part

Yes, there's a subscription now. Before the pitchforks: everything that made v1 free is still free — the widget, the nudges, time-of-day suggestions, up to 10 of your own activities. The ONE thing behind the paywall is unlimited activities. That's the entire upsell.

Last time I wrote "no weird monetization" — I'd like to think this still qualifies. I just wanted a way for the app to buy me coffee without betraying the original post. The paywall literally says "you keep an indie dev caffeinated."

The marketing experiment (this is the fun part)

I can't outspend anyone on ads, so I'm trying to out-meme them instead. I started posting this stuff literally yesterday, so consider this a day-one field report:

- Comics. A series about the hard-hat brain getting destroyed by The Algorithm — "I'll just check TikTok for 5 minutes" → it's 2:42 AM. Standalone memes that happen to have an app behind them.

- A song. I made an anthem about doomscrolling with Suno — "I opened my phone for thirty seconds, just to check the weather outside. Now I'm learning how to restore tractors..." — then cut a music video out of the comic panels and posted it on TikTok and YouTube. It's the entire app pitch disguised as a meme song. Chorus is literally "Ugh. Okay. Put the phone away."

The theory: people share things that roast their own behavior. Nobody shares an ad. Whether the theory survives contact with reality — I'll report back.

The honest question for you all

Has anyone here actually marketed an app through memes/comics/music instead of ads? Did it convert, or did you just end up making art for 12 people? I genuinely can't tell yet which one I'm doing.

📱 App Store — UghOkay: Stop Doomscrolling

🌐 ughokay.com - there's an interactive fake feed on the landing page that doomscrolls you until 3:47 AM — try it

🤖 v1 is still up for Android folks