Worried about patents potentially robbing me of future income
I realize that someone copying your idea and trying to compete with you is just part of the game. I'm prepared for that - and I wouldn't really mind that much if that happens.
What I am worried about is patent trolls. We as Indie Hackers know that ideas by themselves are worthless, but that doesn't stop people from patenting all sorts of ideas. You could spend a year going through the actually challenging part of building your technology, selling it, and then someone else can come along and say "I had that idea first!!", and sue you, wasting a lot of your resources, and potentially destroying everything.
So the core of my question is this: Do I seriously have to entertain the idea that these patents could ruin my future business? Do I have to spend time searching patents, reading through them, and then being stressed about a patent that says "The program gathers users' feedback using front-end technology, sends this data over the network securely, and stores it in a database for retrieval later by the company's manager through a secure login system." when I'm building some sort of online feedback application, for example?
I wouldn't worry about it. There's no point in a patent troll targeting you unless you have a very successful business that they can troll you out of money. They won't waste their time trolling you out of nothing.