We have plenty of posts on DEV announcing new tools, libraries, agents, and frameworks.
I want to hear about the opposite.
What did you build that worked perfectly, perhaps even taught you a lot, but nobody actually needed?
Maybe it solved a problem that only you had or perhaps did not exist. Maybe an existing tool already did it better. Maybe you spent three weekends automating something that took five minutes per year. Or perhaps you built it simply because the idea was fun.
There is nothing wrong with building for curiosity. The problem begins when we confuse “I enjoyed making this” with “the world needs this product.”
Before starting another project, I am trying to ask:
Who actually has this problem?
How are they solving it today?
Would they change their current process to use my solution?
Am I building this because it is needed, or simply because I want to build it?
Both answers can be valid. A hobby project does not need a market. But we should at least be honest with ourselves about which one it is.
So, what is your most impressive useless project?
What did it do, why did nobody use it, and what did you learn from building it?
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