Yes, and it is very tiresome advice to see continually, especially when given to newcomers whose first instinct is to build a solid, useful app or service, and they're being steered away from that. The number of times I've read that one should put up landing pages, spend time socializing them, and only if there are enough signups to actually build something is rather depressing.
These folks are obviously playing a different game than I'm used to. But in my ~30 years at it, I can confidently say that taking the time to build what I feel are good apps, well-crafted, has provided immense satisfaction (I can at least look at a collection of apps, not landing pages), and has always developed or honed my skills, which has opened many doors. The marketing-first approach just sounds painful for someone who, like me, wants to be building things.
You have a hobby (of making apps), not an actual business. The sibling comment is right, those are two different skills that optimize for different things. Which is fine, everyone has hobbies, but understand that the "game" they're playing is making money, which requires acquiring customers, which requires marketing.
>and only if there are enough signups to actually build something is rather depressing
Yes, but it is also rather depressing to spend a lot of effort building something that nobody wants. Especially if you are trying to make a living at it.
"I can confidently say that taking the time to build what I feel are good apps, well-crafted, has provided immense satisfaction"
... but has it provided more revenue that what it would have cost for someone to hire you to build this at an acceptable hourly rate? Because if not, you're comparing your hobby against their business in the sense that you can accept less profitable results which wouldn't work for them.
These folks are obviously playing a different game than I'm used to. But in my ~30 years at it, I can confidently say that taking the time to build what I feel are good apps, well-crafted, has provided immense satisfaction (I can at least look at a collection of apps, not landing pages), and has always developed or honed my skills, which has opened many doors. The marketing-first approach just sounds painful for someone who, like me, wants to be building things.