I think many of us have noticed the trend that modern tech just... Doesn't make things better. There's little to be excited about, because anything even remotely innovative is going to be filled with tracking, ads, etc.
Let's say you had a bored software engineer or 2 at your disposal and the goal was to improve something you do often, by creating an application or website that isn't owned and enshittified by a megacorp looking to extract maximum short term value - what would your project be? Is it something you'd be willing to pay for, maybe with a free tier available?
The reason I'm asking is that I'm a software engineer and in the current hard-ass market, while I'm lucky enough to have a stable job, I know that experience alone isn't cutting it anymore in the recruitment process. You need to be able to show side projects too. Plus I have an unemployed software engineer friend who also has no interesting projects to show. So if we make any money out of it, that's awesome. If we don't, it's just something for our github accounts. Probably the latter.
PS: Yes, I know this is not a tech community - I want ideas from regular, non-techy people too.
PPS: This doesn't have to be something in your personal life, it could also be something that would help you at work if you had it.
A lot of things that come with software that people despise would be fine if the software wasn't designed to monetize the fuck out of you.
The common thread here is not that there's a niche where software hasn't been introduced yet, but that there's a dearth of good software/firmware.
A better TV OS was my first thought too. My Samsung frame's OS makes it incomprehensibly difficult to do what I want it to do because all the icons for unrelated shit (basically icon ads) get in the way. I can't imagine how they think this is a good design either... "Ooooh, they accidentally clicked on ShnoozleTV! We got 'em now! Let the pennies roll in! ...shit, they went back to the home screen."
It's one I've thought about myself too, but I think it'd be a hard sell to manufacturers. I wonder if there's anyone who makes white label TVs you could flash your own OS on and sell
Or, better yet, no OS at all and turn it into a straight-up display panel.
I absolutely agree on this one! Your examples are good too! Unfortunately they require more resources to pull off than I could realistically amass, but I hope someone else will.
Really, I'd like to see more IoT products that can run completely locally myself.
I don't mind if an IoT device has the capability to use a SaaS service. But it shouldn't depend on it.