Offline Capability Trade-offs

I almost went down the offline-first rabbit hole with WatermelonDB. It seemed like the "right" way to build a mobile app, until I thought about when people actually use a recipe app.

Most of the time, they're at home or in a grocery store. Both have Wi-Fi. Offline support would mean building sync logic, conflict resolution, and a whole layer of state management complexity. For an MVP, that felt like over-engineering.

Sure, offline features sound cool. But only a handful of apps actually need them, and I wasn't building one of those apps.

I shipped without it. Ultimately, getting a focused product out quickly beats building features most users will never notice.