Founder. CISO. Shipped AI to 100K+ users and identity for $400M+ in fintech. Writing on AI agents, Elixir, and Omarchy → https://xitter.cf/t.co/uzSTLotAm3
California
Joined January 2013
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It’s not exactly 29 and never pay again. It’s 29 and then you get to host it and maintain it which all have a cost. So is the amount of management you have to do worth 40/mo to you.
If they ever turn off llm subscriptions then it becomes exponentially more expensive.
databull is the perfect example of what i keep seeing: indie hackers don't buy software. they rebuild it.
someone was paying $39/mo for an analytics tool. instead of paying, they cloned it and sold it for $29 lifetime. to the same crowd. who will also never pay monthly.
i pulled 7,800+ startups with verified revenue and split them by who they sell to:
- tools sold to indie hackers and founders: 74.5% make $0 a month.
- tools sold to small businesses and b2b teams: 60.5% make $0.
- only 4.5% of indie hacker tools ever reach $1k mrr. b2b tools reach it 2.5x as often.
- average mrr: about $530 selling to indie hackers vs about $1,870 selling to businesses. that's 3.5x.
why it keeps happening:
- they can build it themselves. every tool you sell them is a weekend project they're sure they could ship.
- they wait for the lifetime deal. monthly pricing is something they complain about, not something they pay.
- they're broke on purpose. most are pre-revenue and cutting costs, not buying tools.
- they're your competitors. your best customer today launches your clone next month.
when you zoom out, selling to indie hackers fails in one of three ways. they rebuild you, they wait you out for a lifetime deal, or they never had the budget in the first place!
Meh always someone who will pay for what they could have got for free.
There have been free alternatives to massively used softwares for decades. People will pay for trust, and for niche uses, or just so they don’t have to think about it or deal with managing it themselves.
Jared Smith retweeted
Hi everyone. I wanted to introduce you all to the ODK ("Omarchy Development Kit"). This is a project that provides the foundational work for building high quality, consistent and beautiful applications for Omarchy. It is based on Rust and GPUI, moving away from Quickshell, and besides just having apps built in Rust, the ODK also introduces a runtime service that can understand app archives similar to the MacOS `.app` - but in our case of course, `.oma` - this means that a directory becomes "executable" and automatically sandboxed under a least privilege permissions model. Please check out the video. I recorded this super quick, so the production value is low. I am not a content guy!
Jared Smith retweeted
Omarchy QA, using nightly builds, is now kicking off every morning at 8am
granted there is only one test, but that one test is beautiful :)
Should have 50 tests here soon
Jared Smith retweeted
I recommend everyone upgrade Ruby immediately. This is a DoS and RCE vector if you accept user input into Regexp.new() ruby-lang.org/en/news/2026/1…
Jared Smith retweeted
3% of “critical” software security bugs, in all of recorded history, have been found in the last month.
This is on pace to find another ~100,000 bugs this year alone, adding ~26% more vulnerabilities to the all time total
Do you realize how fucking insane that is?
Jared Smith retweeted
A few days ago this was a mockup. Tonight it's running in @Omarchy: live NEXRAD radar in the weather panel, looping through a storm that’s currently passing over Grants, NM right now.
Jared Smith retweeted
🚨 BREAKING: LINUX IS NOW FACING TWO CRITICAL SECURITY VULNERABILITIES, AND THERE ARE NO OFFICIAL KERNEL FIXES YET.
Both rated 9.0/10 in severity.
One could allow hackers to take control of vulnerable servers WITHOUT EVEN LOGGING IN.
And the most alarming part? The flaws were made PUBLIC before patches were ready.
Here's what's happening:
→ TWO CRITICAL RCE FLAWS: Both affect KSMBD, Linux's built-in SMB file server.
→ NO PASSWORD REQUIRED: One vulnerability could allow unauthenticated attackers to execute malicious code on vulnerable servers.
→ KERNEL-LEVEL ACCESS: Successful exploitation could potentially give attackers control within the Linux kernel itself.
→ NO MAINLINE PATCH YET: Both vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed before official kernel fixes were available.
→ DISCOVERED BY AI: Trend Micro's AI-powered security scanner identified the flaws.
→ SERVERS AT RISK: Linux systems running the vulnerable KSMBD service need immediate attention, especially if port 445 is exposed.
First PHP. Then Node.js. Then GitLab. Then Python.
NOW LINUX.
And this time, the vulnerabilities are PUBLIC before the fixes are ready.
If you manage Linux servers, CHECK YOUR EXPOSURE NOW.
🚨 BREAKING: IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE. NOW PYTHON IS FACING A MASSIVE SECURITY EMERGENCY.
Python's security team has issued an URGENT warning after a certificate authority compromise put Python's HTTPS security at risk.
→ 8 CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY KEYS COMPROMISED. Some were so weak they could be cracked almost INSTANTLY.
→ FAKE TRUSTED WEBSITES: Attackers could potentially impersonate Python.org, PyPI and other websites during intercepted connections.
→ MALICIOUS DOWNLOADS: Vulnerable environments could be tricked into downloading software from attacker-controlled servers.
→ YOUR OS PATCH MAY NOT PROTECT YOU: Older versions of pip can STILL trust compromised certificates even after system updates.
→ EMERGENCY UPDATES: Python developers are being told to immediately update pip, certifi, uv and other affected tools.
→ DOCKER USERS AT RISK: Existing container images may retain vulnerable certificate stores and need rebuilding.
First PHP. Then Node.js. Then GitLab. Then LiteLLM.
NOW PYTHON.
The very systems developers rely on to establish TRUST online are becoming the attack surface.
If you use Python, PATCH NOW.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Python certifi/pip details match the real eMudhra CA incident, but PHP, GitLab and LiteLLM involved unrelated software bugs, platform flaws and supply chain malware—not CA key compromises like this (Node.js patched concurrently for the same CA issue).
discuss.python.org/t/information-…
emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com
github.com/advisories/GHS…
docs.litellm.ai/blog/security-…
snyk.io/blog/php-patch…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
KSMBD is a rarely used optional in-kernel SMB server distinct from the common Samba implementation; it is not enabled or shipped by default on major distributions like RHEL, and the flaws affect only systems explicitly running it with port 445 exposed.
thehackernews.com/2026/10/two-cv…
threatlandscape.io/blog/ksmbd-zdi…
Jared Smith retweeted
OmarchyTV: your Android TV home screen, in Omarchy's look. 📺
Marco Porro released it in beta today, and DHH already asked: "We can fix smart TVs too?!"
What you get:
▸ Workspaces 1–5 and a Waybar-style bar, like Hyprland
▸ Your streaming apps in one row, plus a Walker-style menu
▸ All 23 Omarchy themes and a terminal-style screensaver
▸ Pair your Omarchy PC with a 6-digit code to push themes and share your screen
Try it: install the APK over adb, set OmarchyTV as the home app, then pair from "Connect Omarchy Linux".
It's beta, tested on one Sony TV and the emulator. One press switches back to the stock launcher.
Link, install guide and credits are in the first reply.
Which screen in your house still doesn't run Omarchy?
Jared Smith retweeted
We need a slang term for developers who don't use PHP but are suddenly experts on PHP vulnerabilities.
What are we calling them?
Jared Smith retweeted
There must exists an app with PHP, deployed on Railway, with calls to cURL, with other services written in node that use Brotli compression running on a couple day old Linux, with their code self managed on GitLab
They are having a hell of a week
