Is anyone out there still writing code for Windows (that isn’t a game)?

By “out there,” I specifically mean on this forum.

I’ve been writing something for UWP, in part to answer the question, “How long would it take to get something good and usable released?” But lately, and especially after news of Samsung’s DeX, my motivation has dropped to nearly zero.

This is a spare time thing (I have a job with a very well paying web site), so whatever I write, I can’t also support a service behind it that I have to secure and keep running. That means that if there is user state, it either 1. can’t be synced across devices or 2. needs to use the platform’s sync mechanisms that are available natively. Furthermore, most apps that are not line-of-business (and even some that are), need to work both on users’ phones. For UWP this means W10M, but since even r/windowsphone is losing faith (see https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/627jx2/samsungs_galaxy_s8_can_turn_into_a_pc_with_its/), by the time it’s ready to ship, there many literally be no one left.

I’m guessing Xamarin apps don’t have this kind of thing built in, and I’m not even sure it’s possible to make it seamless in the platform. How can you predict that this Google account and that MSFT account are the same person? If it’s not built in, that means that you have to do so much more work to get a consistent app experience both on PCs and on Android/iOS. Maybe this was MSFT’s idea with buying Xamarin: assume people are going to _have_ to run services with their apps, and we’ll make Azure so easy to use from it, we’ll monetize it that way. The unfortunate part is that makes an app much harder to write well, and I, for one, don’t have the time or energy to be on call for a mobile service 24/7.