I think building apps with spreadsheets makes sense, but to me the spreadsheet works better as the UI, not the database. In other words, you still store your data in a plain RDBMS, but you access and manipulate that data via spreadsheet formulas or custom functions.
Maybe... but a regular spreadsheet doesn't map very well to a RDBMS due to its variable and flat structure. It might map to a column data store like Cassandra I guess, wonder if anyone has looked at that?
What I'm working on though is more about taking the core of existing spreadsheets and building powerful integrations on top of it. Like in the sibling comments, building a webapp, or something else. I really think this has huge potential.
What about a spreadsheet program that can be scripted with Javascript?
JS is nice because all you need to write it is a text editor and a web browser, both of which just about all computers have. I had an entry-level job that involved a computer once and automated a lot of the painful stuff with JS - I bet that if more people knew JS, more people would do the same.
I don't know if that'd be a good business proposition, but I think it could be a good on-ramp.
Google Sheets uses JavaScript as its scripting language. The problems I've had there are related to how complicated it is to get data in and out of Sheets. If you want to update a sheet you own, you need to do a full blown OAuth2 implementation.
Excel has an JavaScript API now as well right? At least I heard rumblings to that effect. Not sure how hard / easy it is to get data into / out of though.
