Like many developers struggling to make a living in the increasingly price-sensitive, App Store-influenced market, I was somewhat discouraged by Rene Ritchie’s excellent “What no indie developer wants to hear about the App Store.”

Rene argues that the app economy is moving towards cheap, mass produced, bargain-priced software that is simply not suitable for sustaining small-time indie software businesses. He adopts a beautiful metaphor, borrowed from his own childhood: the classic wooden toy.

When I was a child, all my favorite toys were wooden, painstakingly carved by artisans who ran the store near my home. I cherished them. Today those kinds of toys are all but gone, and that business model is no longer viable in the mass market.

Ugh. He’s right. Everything is cheap plastic, nowadays. Or is it?

If I pull up a mental inventory of my own kids’ playroom, there are indeed a ton of cheap, plastic toys. But there are also a good number of, wait for it, quality wooden toys.

Wooden toys are still being made! Shout it from rooftops, my indie brothers and sisters! If your inspirations and ambitions were flayed by Rene’s dose of reality, perhaps this will serve as an inspiring salve: do a Google image search for “wooden toys“. Those aren’t antiques…

I remember when my kids were younger, marveling at the powerhouse of wooden infant toys, Melissa & Doug. If you have a baby and are part of a socioeconomic culture that can sustain it, you have seen these toys. They are everywhere. And they are far from cheap.

So? Make wooden toys. Metaphorically speaking, I mean. (Unless, like Gus Mueller, woodworking has been your backup plan all along.) Make software that is inspired by wooden toys. Although the market is dominated by cheap plastic, there is real money for thoughtful, careful developers in the market that favors charming, slightly overpriced throwbacks to another era. Make wooden toys.