Comment by zenhack

Is! We're not dead yet! (see my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36193093).

I don't think app packaging could be said to be the achilles heel -- how much work it involves depends a lot on the app (some things are very easy, others can be painful), but it is certainly not the case that Sandstorm didn't take off because packaging was too hard.