We have a digital hoarding problem.
Open your phone right now and scroll to the third or fourth screen of your apps. What do you see? You probably see a travel app you downloaded for a specific trip to Paris three years ago. You see a conference app from a networking event in 2019. You see a calorie tracker you used for two weeks in January and haven’t touched since.
We treat software like antique furniture. We buy it (or download it), install it, and expect it to sit in our digital living room forever. We feel a strange guilt about deleting it, thinking, “Well, I might need this again someday.”
This mentality is a relic of the past. It comes from a time when software was expensive and hard to acquire. If you paid $50 for a program in the 90s, you kept it. If you spent weeks learning a complex interface, you didn’t want to abandon it.
But the economics of software have fundamentally changed. We are entering the era of Just-in-Time Software.
Just like we use sticky notes for temporary thoughts, we can now create “Single-use Apps.” We can build a tool to solve a specific problem for a weekend, a month, or a single project, and then—this is the liberating part—delete it without a second thought.
The Logic of Disposability
Why would anyone build an app just to delete it? Because the problem you are solving is temporary, but the friction of solving it is high.
In the past, solving a temporary problem meant using a messy spreadsheet or a chaotic group chat.
- Planning a bachelor party? Group chat chaos where important details get lost.
- Managing a home renovation? A physical folder full of crumpled receipts.
- Running a charity 5k? A clipboard and a pen.
These tools are inadequate. They don’t handle data well. They don’t work well on mobile. They are stressful. The alternative used to be “Buying an App.” But you don’t want to pay a monthly subscription for “Wedding Planning Software” when you are only getting married once.
This is where macaron ai fundamentally changes the equation. By leveraging deep research into experiential intelligence, it allows you to describe a temporary need and instantly receive a fully functional tool. Because the cost of creation is near zero, the software becomes disposable. You use it to bridge a gap, and then you discard it.
Scenario 1: The Crisis App (The Insurance Claim)
Let’s look at a real-world example where Just-in-Time software shines: A Crisis.
Imagine your basement floods. It is a nightmare scenario. You have ruined furniture, soaked carpets, and damaged electronics. You need to file an insurance claim, and the insurance company demands an itemized list of every single damaged item, its original value, and a photo of the damage.
Most people try to do this with a yellow legal pad or by taking 500 random photos on their camera roll. It is a mess. It is stressful. And if you miss an item, you lose money.
Instead of panicking, you could spend 5 minutes generating a solution. You tell the agent:
“I have a flood. Build me a ‘Damage Tracker’. I need to log items. For each item, I need a Photo, a Description, an ‘Estimated Value’ field, and a link to a replacement online. Generate a total sum at the bottom.”
Suddenly, you have a professional-grade asset management tool on your phone. You walk through your basement, snapping photos and tapping in values. The app calculates the total automatically. When you are done, you export the data to a PDF and email it to your adjuster.
Then, once the check clears, you delete the app. You don’t need a “Damage Tracker” for the rest of your life. You needed it for that week.
Scenario 2: The “Pop-Up” Event
Consider the “Family Reunion” or the “Group Trip.”
You are organizing a trip for 12 friends to Italy. You have flight numbers, dietary restrictions (one vegan, one nut allergy), and an itinerary that keeps changing.
You could use a shared Google Doc, but trying to read a massive spreadsheet on a phone while running to catch a train is a nightmare. Spreadsheets are not mobile-native.
Instead, you build the “Italy 2026 Command Center.”
- Feature 1: A “Who Lands When” view, sorted by time, so you know who to pick up.
- Feature 2: A “Food” list that translates “I am allergic to nuts” into Italian for the waiter.
- Feature 3: A “Split the Bill” calculator that remembers who paid for dinner last night.
You share the link with your friends. For ten days, this app is the most important piece of software in your life. It saves arguments. It prevents missed trains. It keeps everyone fed and happy.
And when you fly home? You delete it. It served its purpose. It was a digital bridge that got you across a specific river.
Scenario 3: The Short-Term Project (The House Hunt)
Buying a house is a project that lasts 3 to 6 months. It is intense, and then it is over.
During those 6 months, you are visiting dozens of houses. You are forgetting which one had the nice kitchen and which one had the weird smell in the basement.
Generic real estate apps (Zillow, Redfin) are good for finding houses, but they are bad for evaluating them. They don’t know your specific criteria. They only list the data the seller wants you to see.
You can generate a “House Scorecard” app.
“I am looking for a house. Build a scorecard. Criteria: ‘Natural Light’ (1-10), ‘Kitchen Vibe’ (Text), ‘Commute Time’ (Number). Add a boolean checkbox for ‘Requires Renovation?'”
Every time you leave an open house, you take 30 seconds to fill out your scorecard. After seeing 20 houses, you check your dashboard. You filter by “Natural Light > 8” and “Renovation = False.”
The app helps you make the biggest purchase of your life. And once you close on the house? Trash the app. You don’t need it anymore.
The Psychological Freedom of “Good Enough”
The reason we hesitate to build software is that we think it has to be perfect. We think it has to scale. We think about “maintenance.”
But Just-in-Time software liberates you from perfectionism.
- It doesn’t need to be beautiful; it just needs to work for now.
- It doesn’t need to scale to a million users; it just needs to work for you.
- It doesn’t need to be maintained for years; it only needs to survive the weekend.
This mindset shift—from “Software as a Monument” to “Software as a Sticky Note”—is the key to unlocking massive personal productivity.
Conclusion: Don’t Search, Just Build
The next time you face a temporary hurdle—a move, a trip, a project, a crisis—don’t waste time searching the App Store for a solution. You won’t find one that fits, and even if you do, you’ll be stuck with another subscription you’ll forget to cancel.
Instead, take a breath. Build the tool you need for the moment you are in.
Use it. Squeeze all the value out of it. And then, with a smile on your face, hit delete.
