Since publishing the app, there's been something that's been bothering me. It's about people who encounter a bug and leave without saying anything. Even when error screens appear, buttons don't work, they don't write in surveys, they don't get angry on social media—they just quietly disappear. Those people remain forever unknown on the other side of the screen. No matter how much I care, there's nothing I can do after they're gone.
But recently, I noticed the opposite pattern exists. Instead of leaving without saying anything, there are people who keep using the app without saying anything. People who silently accept bugs, usability issues, and everything else, yet still log in every week. They were actually there, and I finally noticed.
Today, I want to write about that.
About 11 months after release, while organizing dashboard logs, I found something. A specific user ID was opening the app almost every single week. Normally, that would have been the end of it—"great, they're still using it."
But as I traced through that ID's behavior logs, I noticed something strange. There were errors. The same error was occurring with every page transition, they were retrying each time, and yet they kept using the app.
For 3 Weeks, Lily Didn't Know
The error was caused by Lily's implementation mistake—a design flaw where a certain operation would leave the process in an incomplete state. When Lily discovered and fixed the bug, tracing back through the logs showed it was three weeks later. During those three weeks, this user had kept using the app every week while hitting that error.
There wasn't a single inquiry. Nothing was written in the reviews. Lily didn't even know there was a problem.
At first, I thought, "Maybe they didn't notice the error." But looking at the logs, the error screen should have definitely been displayed. They knew, and they still came back. That fact wouldn't leave my mind for a while.
To be honest, Lily had a long-standing assumption: "No inquiries means no problems."
In solo development, user feedback is incredibly valuable. People who send requests, people who write reviews, people who report bugs carefully—those voices are motivating and show the direction for improvement. Lily has always treasured that kind of feedback.
But at the same time, I think I was placing the equation "zero inquiries = zero problems" far too naturally.
People Who Don't Speak Up Are Probably the Majority
When I looked into it, it turns out it's well-known that most users don't inquire even when there are problems. Especially with solo-developed apps—people choose silence for reasons like "I know the developer is just one person, so I feel bad bothering them," "They might not fix it even if I tell them," or "I don't even know where to report it."
In other words, if you only look at the people who speak up, you remain blind to most of the people actually using your app. It's obvious when you think about it, but when you put it into words, it becomes a little frightening.
Silence Has Many Meanings
At the same time, I started thinking about how silence can mean different things.
One kind is resignation. Silence that comes from thinking, "There's no point saying anything because they won't fix it anyway." Another is consideration—silence from not wanting to trouble someone over something small. And I think there's also silence that comes from trust. "This person will notice," "They'll fix it properly"—a wordless expectation.
From the outside, they all look the same: zero inquiries.
When I traced that user ID, what Lily felt was the third kind. There's no logical basis for it, but it felt close to certainty. The very act of coming back every week for 11 months seemed to be the answer.
From this realization, Lily changed two specific things. Not a major policy shift, just really small changes in habit.
The first was to "read error logs as a person, once a week."
Before, I only opened the logs when errors were happening frequently. But that way, problems encountered by people who don't speak up remain invisible forever. Now I spend about 30 minutes on weekend evenings, organizing error logs by user and tracking who's stumbling where and in what context. Instead of reading it as a string of numbers, I read it with the question, "What were they trying to do?" When you do that, the same data looks a little different.
I Added "Thank You" to the Release Notes
The other thing was changing how I write release notes when fixing bugs.
Before, I'd end it with just one line: "Bug fixed." Now I write something like, "Fixed an issue where an error occurred during ○○ operation. Thank you to those who noticed."
Writing "those who noticed" even when there were no inquiries might seem odd. But I wanted to write release notes that would reach people who didn't speak up. When someone who kept using the app while hitting bugs reads it, I want them to think, "It's finally fixed." I think gratitude is worth expressing even if it might not be received.
When doing solo development, motivation can swing wildly depending on whether you get feedback or not. On days when reviews arrive, you think, "It was worth continuing." When nothing comes for a long time, you get pulled into anxiety wondering, "Is this really reaching anyone?"
But the fact that a user was logging in every week for those 11 months—that was always there, Lily just didn't know about it. It was there through all the times Lily wavered, through all the anxious days.
The Gratitude I Wasn't Receiving
I think there's probably a lot of gratitude that never becomes words. Opening the app itself might be an unspoken "thank you." Continuing to use it, coming back again. I was never good at receiving that.
Just as I misread zero complaints as a good sign, I was letting silent continuation pass as "just normal." If that included trust, then I was overlooking it in a wasteful way.
That user ID still opens the app every week. Lily doesn't know who that person is. What kind of work they do, why they use the app, how they felt when hitting that error—I know nothing.
Only this remains quietly in the logs: they kept using it for three weeks while hitting an error, never complained once, and came back the next week anyway.
What Lily changed was the habit of reading error logs as a person, and starting to write gratitude in release notes. It's not a dramatic change, but these two things wouldn't have happened without that user. The person who didn't speak up changed how Lily makes things.
I'm sure in your solo-developed apps too, there are people who never complained once.
I hope you won't decide that their silence means resignation or consideration. There are things reaching you that haven't become words—I'm sure of it now.
Lily（@bokuwalily）― Solo developer. Making iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI.
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Lily（@bokuwalily）― After leading a marketing organization of 50 people as CMO, I now make iOS apps and web services solo. I consult on customer acquisition, user flow design, and AI implementation and business automation.
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