Two months ago I almost wired $1500 to an iOS consultancy. The pitch was solid: "We've seen the TestFlight 'app not available' bug a hundred times, we'll fix it in a day." I didn't end up sending the money. Instead I built three Python scripts that did the same diagnostic work + actually shipped me forward. I want to walk through what made me change my mind, because I think a lot of indie devs are one decision away from making the wrong call here. The pitch and why it almost worked The agency salesperson was knowledgeable. They named the right symptoms. They knew the exact Apple Forum thread (674932). They had a 2-day turnaround promise. What sold me was the relief — having someone else to handle this. I was 30 days into the bug, my apps were stuck in PREPARE_FOR_SUBMISSION, and every search result said "submit a Feedback Assistant ticket and wait." The friction was real. The desire to outsource was real.…