Back in 2009, Merlin Mann and I jointly gave a talk at SxSW titled “ Obsession Times Voice ”. Regarding how it turned out, I wrote : My muse for the session was this quote from Walt Disney: “We don’t make movies to make money; we make money to make more movies.” To me, that’s it. That’s the thing. Merlin and I were talking about independent writers and podcasters, because that’s what we were (and remain), but the concept applies just as perfectly to independent developers. This came to my mind after reading ( and linking to ) David Smith’s description of the new Pedometer++ today. Not just what it does, but why he spent six years making it . That’s the sort of productive obsession that fascinates me. Ice water is always refreshing, but it tastes better when you’re on a road trip to hell. It feels like the world of software is bifurcating quality-wise. This whole thing about Adobe’s new craptacular “modern” UI language (a.k.a.…