Somehow successful and still a loser?

Warning: Very long text and whining coming. Please read only if you have nothing else important to do. :-)

(Sorry if the English sometimes sounds a bit strange. My mother tongue is German and the translator is my friend.)

Ever since I was young, I have loved working with computers. In the times of Windows 98, I think I reinstalled the operating system once a day after destroying it with registry hacks, with the intention of making something "better". I also took apart my PC several times, upgraded hardware and put it back together again. My mother always asked me if I could put it back together again. (Of course I could). Basically, for my parents I was probably just the weird kid in front of the computer who never went outside.

I finished my education in 2000. To become an IT specialist in the direction of application development. However, I had been drawn more and more in the direction of the “web” and pure software could never really inspire me. In an internship I was able to gain first experiences with PHP and Javascript and I loved both. I spent the next few years learning both better in my free time.

Here and there I created websites for small companies, etc. That was a lot of fun for me, but it was also annoying from time to time because everyone always wanted to pay as little as possible for it. True to the motto: you don't have any cost of goods anyway and it only costs your time.

At some point there were suddenly smartphones and my dearest wish was to program such apps myself at some point. I had applied for a job to program iPhone apps. I had no experience with it and hated this Objective C. I left the company during the probationary period.

I then tried Java and found the XML structure to design the interface awful and complicated. I then tried Xamarin and it didn't work either. The dream of own apps had burst. Everything was too complicated for me.

So I went back to web development and was able to further expand my knowledge with PHP and Javascript over many years. It's been a pleasure to watch PHP continue to evolve and get better.

However, I now hate my 9to5 job and would like to become self-employed. Earn my own money just for me and be independent. I can hardly stand it.

3 years ago in 2019 I suddenly stumbled across something called “Flutter” and had something to do with apps. Curious as I was, and with my dream in mind, I started looking into it. And what should I say? It was a wonderful. From a PHP and Javascript perspective, Dart was just great. No separation of interface and backend. Just a single code. I quickly found reference to it and started to learn and implement the first example projects and was really happy that I succeeded. In the past you had to flip through books, today you can book online courses for little money and everything is explained and you can learn at your own pace. What a great time.

In the meantime I have successfully published 4 working apps in the Play Store.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=7039963907330752614&hl=en

A BMI calculator, which of course nobody really cares about. There are just too many for that. In addition, a VAT calculator that is also hardly noticed.

Originally programmed as a web app, I created my password generator as an app and now have 10,000 active users. However, I don't really make a profit with it, since the app only has a donation function. Every once in a while someone makes a donation. However, advertising is out of the question for me because I hate it myself. I plan to further expand the app in the future and to integrate an in-app purchase.

The fourth and final app is my notes app. Originally also designed as a web app, I implemented it as an app for the smartphone. The thinking behind it was to combine Google Drive with unlimited folder structure with the simplicity of Google Keep. Just without cloud function. Just like that, offline on your smartphone. The Notes app now has nearly 4,000 active users since release in 2021, and since I've included in-app purchases here, I actually get a small monthly fee from it. But it really isn't much.

I'll be 40 this year, have 2 kids, hate my job and really want to be free and independent. I can't just quit because I have a family. Am I ever going to be successful? Maybe I'm living in a bubble and just imagining that I could? On the other hand, who can claim to be able to program apps (apart from people in this forum. :-D ). So somehow I'm successful. But somehow not.

Sorry, I just had to get this out there. Maybe you feel something similar? Or you don't know such problems at all and I'm just a weird guy.