We used to search for an app that would fit our needs exactly. Today, we can simply build one ourselves. This isn’t just a technological shift — it’s an entirely new mindset. I call it Disposable Apps.
What Are Disposable Apps?
Disposable Apps are small, personal, temporary digital solutions that we create for ourselves. Rather than building a product designed for everyone — packed with features — they are tailored to us, for a specific moment. We may come back to use them again, or we may not. They are built with tools like GPT and Lovable, and that is the essence of vibe coding.
From Personalization to Self-Customization
Most of the tools we know operate on the basis of “personalization” — the system learns about us and adapts content, interfaces, or recommendations accordingly.
Hyper-personalization takes this a step further. Systems don’t merely surface content that “probably suits me”; they create or modify content, experiences, services, or products specifically for us, in real time, based on the precise context we are in.
In a single sentence, the difference between personalization and hyper-personalization is the difference between using data about us and using that same data only in context.
Disposable Apps enable self-customization. We create a tool that fits us — by ourselves. It’s no longer a system adapting something existing to me; it’s me adapting something entirely new to myself. Bringing this into my own area of expertise — learning — it’s like building your own learning app instead of choosing an existing course.
Say we want to learn more about how to use Model Context Protocol (MCP). We could search for videos, read guides, or simply tell GPT:
“Explain what MCP is through a dialogue between a robot and a person who works in the same job as me.”
From there, we can take that conversation and turn it into a self-learning app that simulates a Q&A format, complete with examples and explanations, and lets us interact with it directly. Using this approach, we build a way of learning that isn’t just tailored to us — it was born from us.
And this is already happening. You can read about it in the post on using GenAI for learning analysis, or in the post I wrote about how I built an AI-based service simulator with PartyRock.
Learning no longer flows exclusively through courses — it flows through the creation of personally tailored tools for focused learning goals.
A New Era
We are entering a new era of building personal, instant, intelligent tools using natural language — without knowing how to code, without depending on developers. Disposable Apps are the future of problem-solving.