I have wondered the same thing. Neo is just one example of a vibe-coded writing app that was presumably so quick and easy to create (because Claude built it for him) that Mr. Howey could release it as a free and open source app. “Claude, make me a writing app that does X, Y, and Z.” (I’m oversimplifying it, but not by as much as one might think.)
Others are releasing paid writing apps that are rolling out features so rapidly that surely they are vibe-coding them. That’s probably the biggest threat to traditional writing-app developers and puts pressure on them to vibe-code, too.
For me, the “aha” moment was the realization that I can very quickly create a writing app that suits just me as a novelist and is tailored to the particular writing project I have in front of me, as I demonstrated in my video shared in If Scrivener, Aeon Timeline, and Obsidian had a baby.
This experience is radically different from competing for the attention of a software developer to create or improve features that I would find helpful. (I say this without joy, because AI is pushing brilliant, dedicated, self-sacrificing software developers out of their chairs. I hate that, I really do. But here we are, I guess.)