Thoughts on r/MacApps Negativity

Just scroll through the sub for five minutes. the majority of submissions are self-promoted apps from people who purchased a claude/codex subscription last week and started vibe coding without even understanding what problem they’re solving. Stuff like a status bar app to force quit apps when there’s literally a menu under the apple logo that does exactly that…that’s the level we’re talking about 😅 People aren’t being negative for the sake of it, they’re tired of seeing the sub flooded with apps that solve problems that don’t exist, built by people who don’t use macos enough to know the functionality is already there (and then they slap a subscription on it). Yeah, no one is forced to buy anything, sure…but this is a discussion sub and comments like “this already exists natively” or “this is a wrapper around an api with a price tag” are perfectly valid discussion in my opinion…

I feel much the same way. The atmosphere here is kinda tense, not cozy, warm, or welcoming. I feel this way about a lot of subreddits. I know we need rules, but does it have to be like this? Back to our sub: AI is not evil, we just need to use it correctly. What is harmful is 'bad output,' not the assistance AI provides. However, some people want to simplify this to a single tag: raw is good, AI is bad. It's like: native is good, electron is bad, nature is good, artificial is bad (for health), or four legs good, two legs bad. As a non-native speaker, I use AI heavily to correct my grammar, and I learn English in the process. By 'heavily,' I mean I discuss different expressions with AI and pick the most accurate, eloquent phrases for my final posts. I know that minor mistakes are fine, some people even prefer grammar issues because they make it feel more 'human'. But I still tend to write correctly. To me, it’s like dressing decently whenever you go out. As a developer, I have been crafting my app for two years, and I think 70% of the progress was made in the last three months. AI helped me speed up my development and implement features beyond my reach, something I had planned for a long time but never had the time to fully investigate. AI is helping me make the world better, so why not? I hope we all can enjoy a world with AI, it brings far more good than bad.

There's nothing to add. 100% Agreed. I've experienced all three from the developer's perspective. That one random "Holy vibe coded slop" comment that got 5 upvotes on one of my app's monthly post, which turned the post into an arena until it was cleaned by mods. Or the fact my favorite dock reviewer u/andreshow now needs to add a disclaimer in his posts for using Grammarly, because god forbid he uses em dashes. Here's to love and respect, thanks for your post, and posts in general.

Because some people are sick and tired of having 40 versions of the same stupid note-taking/screenshot/calendar/timer app, entirely AI generated, description included, in barely 30 minutes by someone thinking he's going to get rich with his $5/month subscription.

I agree but think people should write their own posts. I want to know what the creator of a project thinks about it, not what ChatGPT thinks. I know this probably doesn’t make anyone feel better but I’d much rather read broken English than “it’s not x, it’s y!” again.

100% this. Saw the same sentiment shared in a writing sub I’m in. If no one wrote it, why should anyone read it?

Nowadays, if you’re using em dashes, you’re doomed

I’ve had to modify the way I write on Reddit because people accused me of using AI lol.

The em dash accusations especially kill me — I've been using them since long before LLMs existed, they're just standard punctuation. But your broader point lands: the sub works better when people argue the substance of a post than when they assign motives. "I don't think app X actually does Y well" is a real contribution; "OP must be shilling" adds nothing and chills anyone from posting positive takes.

There’s a difference between using AI and vibe coding. Plenty of people choose not to disclose that they didn’t write their app and therefore the future of the app depends on their monthly token allowance.

The non-English speaker point is genuinely underappreciated here. Someone working through a language barrier to share something they built or found deserves a bit of patience, not a grammar lecture.

I dunno man, I wanna agree with you but I think it's somewhat natural backlash to seeing "I got tired of [non-existing problem] so I bult an [ai generated app that solves nothing]" posts every day in the sub. If you ignore what's bad the bad eventually becomes new norm and I don't think we want that here. (And you don't need ai to write texts for you, just learn the basic grammar, it's not that hard)

I agree with you! Building software solo is hard enough. Getting stomped by your peers because you made a typo when sharing something is just cold. When it comes to Ai, if you don’t want it to waste your time then why not ignore it?! Why engage and actually take time to share how much you hate this and that, while ignoring some other post that could deserve a quick praise? And sure it’s a forum. But communities die on bad manners and vibes. Even this post advocating for some positivity is getting a lot of justification for negative behaviour and comments… Thanks for pointing it out! 🙏 Hopping for more positivity in this sub.

The reason is because there ARE tons of shilling, vibe coded trash, and AI generated ads here.

Definitely +1 on respect. I've seen conversations about apps veer into personal insults multiple times. I also think we would all benefit from a rule that limits drive-by insults. Someone has got to decide that Mac Apps will be about software. There was a post long ago about Bloom that was something to the tune of "I've been seeing a lot of positive reviews and feedback about Bloom so I thought to share a counter perspective". And my question on that post was why? There's a difference between a negative review born of genuine negative user experience and a wanting to be contrarian for its own sake. One of those is much more likely to be a value add. However, I don't want to be dismissive of sentiments toward AI and low-effort posting. Negative perspective on all things AI did not come out of nowhere and wise developers are sensitive/aware of this. A big part of the GenAI industry is essentially a push for "how little can you be involved while still calling yourself the creator of something?" and "how little can you invest in something while getting other people to invest as much as possible?" Real people don't like this. I personally don't use any vibe coded software. I'm not saying I hate vibe coded software, but if you are asking me to trust you and install your software on my computer I want you to have some skin in the game too, especially if you are just going by a Reddit username. As far as translation goes, I think most people would prefer you just use broken english than have AI present a version of yourself that simply does not exist. I actually have been accused of using ChatGPT for writing and anyone who knows me would think that is hilarious. But my accuser had a point in that I did write somewhat bland and used emojis everywhere. Funny, but hard to argue against. But yeah, we could benefit from some common sense rules on discourse.

You really speak to my thoughts and soul. So many times I’ve been accused of “vibe coding” or told that my posts must have been written with AI. I’m just good at writing posts —I put effort into refining them and making them clear and error-free as I am a native German speaker. Yes, I do occasionally use AI to polish my writing or help organize my thoughts. But no one should be unfairly accused or punished with dozens of downvotes just because someone assumes they used AI.

Don't let it get to you. Immature kids always love to make assumptions and slap labels on people. It's just their way of escaping a complicated world.

I just got a post removed for that very reason. Mod thought I was shilling. In actuality, I had answered questions posed many times in this sub regarding favorite apps, and I continued to give my opinion on what I felt were the best, and I got my comment removed.

Something I've observed is that most of the noise and griping here comes from a vocal minority—usually less than 10%, or accounts that usually have had very little, if any engagement with the subreddit. This was also the case with a recent poll I did on AI sentiments. 13% were anti-AI, and probably half of those are vocal about it. Usually it's just ignorance, because they also often don't use AI or know how it works based on conversations had with such users. When we see a user only ever spreads negativity, we do issue warnings and eventually remove them from the community. We appreciate reports received pointing out cases like this, too. We need to get past being the em dash police. The whole world is now aware of this character that was formerly mostly used in academic spaces, and many now use it with or without AI. Some who don't know English end up with them in their posts because they wrote their post in another language before using an LLM to translate. So we should evaluate posts by content, intrinsic merit, and less by our aversion to atypical keyboard characters. Concerns about "slop" should be defined by quality assessment, not simply the presence of individual indicators that in isolation, may be inconclusive. And yes, I did include one deliberately. :P

i have no idea how this will end up but i'm pretty sure the community is pretty divided on the subject. The people who have no coding skills do exist and post the same type of apps here again and again. On the other hand, there are those who are on a crusade to just yell VIBE-CODED to every app they see. So yes, this is the tiresome part. Mods are trying to do their best by adjusting their rules but one more thing needs to happen. Either those vibe coders realize that you can't buid an app and be successful without actual knowledge and skills or those angry pitch forkers give it a rest and just focus on posts that they care about. We are in a transition phase for sure.

The "vibe coded" accusation is the funniest one because it's often deployed without understanding what "vibe coded" even means. A native Mac app with 200+ commits, proper Swift patterns, and GitHub history isn't "vibe coded" — it's just an app built by someone who ships fast. The accusation is usually a stand-in for "I don't like how confident this person sounds about their own work." The fix is just... asking questions. "What stack did you use?" gets you a real answer from a real builder and filters out LLM-pasted posts instantly.

I agree, it's always a pendulum swing too far in whatever direction. Usually there is enough to complain about whether it's vibe coded or not lol. If there's bad UI or broken stuff, complain about that - it doesn't really matter if it was vibe coded to me.