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.
This is it exactly. There are a lot of great use cases for software, but I'm uncomfortable relying on them, because i know once i start using an app or program in X area of my life or to manage Y problem, it may change or become less useful or start to exploit users in some way. Not everyone doez this, but unfortunately the way the market usually works makes me less and less likely to want to rely on or use software for most things. I want analog, private ways to do things that I control. It sucks, because there are still creative people like op who want to make neat projects. But i've really been burned.
I like to use community-developed open-source software for this reason...