I think a lot of us are curious if this is still possible (or whether it is only true if you built apps 3 years ago) and would like to hear from anyone with knowledge as to whether this is still possible simply by playing the numbers game with a 1-man shop.
For example, "met" a guy on Reddit who claimed to have built a bootload of Google Gadgets and made 1/2 mil in the process. I've been in the same market during that same time-frame, so I'm generally aware of what is feasible... and I believe I can vouch for the fact that this may still be possible, but probably 150x harder now.
Once he got to 100-250k installs things started to take off but that did not happen until two years in so this success is not that long ago. He also started to build more polished apps at that time and stopped consulting to pay the bills and worked on his own stuff "full time."
For example, "met" a guy on Reddit who claimed to have built a bootload of Google Gadgets and made 1/2 mil in the process. I've been in the same market during that same time-frame, so I'm generally aware of what is feasible... and I believe I can vouch for the fact that this may still be possible, but probably 150x harder now.